THE 

JUDGMENT 
OF  PEACE 


ANDREAS   LATZKO 


THE  LIBRARY 
OF    s^s 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

IN  MEMORY  OF 
EDWIN  CORLE 

PRESENTED  BY 
JEAN  CORLE 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 


THE  JUDGMENT 
OF  PEACE 

A  NOVEL 

BY 

ANDREAS  LATZKO 

Author  of  "Men  in  War" 

TRANSLATED   BT   LUDWIQ   LEWISOHN 


BONI    AND    LIVERIGHT 

NEW    YORK  1919 


COPYRIGHT,  1919, 
BONI  &  LIVERIGHT,  INC. 

Att  rights  reserved 


Printed  in  the  United  Statet  of  America 


TO 
ROMAIN  HOLLAND 

MY   GKEAT  COMPATRIOT 
IN  THE  LOVE  OF  MAN 


vrvos  voco 

MORTUOS  PLANGO 


I 

FIELD  GREY 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

i. 

FIELD-GRAY 

Tj^  TILLY  equipped  to  go  out,  George  Gadsky 
-*•  sat  on  his  bed,  letting  his  legs  swing  and 
staring  with  sharply  compressed  lips  out  into  the 
open.  A  pallid  blue  sky  curved  above  the  black, 
snow-splotched  fields;  the  sparrows  were  noisy 
in  the  bare  poplars  in  front  of  the  barracks ;  the 
mild  wind  that  blew  into  the  room  through  the 
open  window  affected  every  limb  with  a  sweet, 
languorous  weariness  as  though  Spring  were  at 
the  door  and  not  the  festival  of  fir-trees  and 
snow-covered  roofs. 

It  was  the  last  Sunday  before  Christmas,  the 
so-called  "golden  Sunday"  of  the  shops :  the  first 
Christmas-tide  of  the  war  period.  That  mon- 
strous event  had  not  yet  thrown  any  shadow  into 
the  land.  No  need  or  .compulsion  oppressed 
those  who  had  stayed  at  home;  only  the  empty 
chairs  at  the  family  gatherings  emphasized  a 
gentle  melancholy  in  the  midst  of  the  time.  A 
fever  had  all  Germany  in  its  grip,  a  frenzy  of 

3 


THE  JUDGMENT  OP  PEACE 

gratitude.  Every  one  eagerly  took  advantage  of 
that  Christmas  as  of  the  first  opportunity  of 
sending  a  word  of  love  to  the  dear  tormented 
ones  out  there.  Any  spectator,  wandering 
through  the  streets,  would  have  come  to  the  con- 
clusion that  all  the  treasures  of  the  city  were 
being  quickly  packed  up  to  be  sent  out  to  the 
field-gray  children  who  had  so  honestly  earned 
their  Christmas  treat  at  the  hands  of  the  home- 
land. 

But  this  tide  of  generosity  and  adoration 
rolled  carelessly  past  one  place — the  barracks. 
The  recruits  saw  the  crowds  surge  in  front  of  the 
little  post-office  next  door;  they  saw  the  paste- 
board boxes  of  all  sizes  stream  thither  and  then 
proceed  on  in  pyramids ;  they  stood  at  their  win- 
dows, envious  and  arguing.  Even  the  most 
stupid  felt  dully  the  contradiction  between  the 
stormy  impulse  of  people  to  honor  the  defenders 
of  the  fatherland,  and  the  treatment  that  was 
given  them  in  the  barracks.  Often  when  the  drill 
sergeant  had  been  particularly  rough  with  one 
of  them  and  the  drill  was  over,  the  bitter  jest 
could  be  heard  in  the  room :  "It's  a  good  thing 
my  old  woman  can't  hear  the  way  I'm  dealt  with 
here.  There'd  be  no  discipline  at  home  after 
that !"  Then  they  would  laugh  and  outdo  reality 
by  supposing  grotesque  possibilities;  but  behind 
these  jests  there  crouched  a  secret  but  mighty 
anger  against  the  whole  fate  of  the  war  that  had 
torn  mature  men  from  the  decent  dignity  at- 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

tained  by  hard  effort  and  had  placed  them  in  the 
moral  position  of  their  own  sons. 

George  Gadsky,  too,  felt  crushed,  torn  out  of 
his  real  self,  degraded  to  the  level  of  a  shabby, 
beaten  sneak.  He  had  just  calculated  that  the 
iron  field-cot  on  which  he  sat  had  now  been  for 
exactly  nine  weeks  all  that  he  knew  of  home,  and 
with  a  shudder  he  compared  the  man  who  now 
answered  to  his  name  to  that  other  one  who  had 
entered  the  barracks  filled  with  a  joyous  deter- 
mination and  a  proud  readiness  for  sacrifice. 
What  had  they  made  of  him?  Instead  of  survey- 
ing as  from  a  superior  station  those  who  still 
clove  to  the  old,  commonplace  life  as  though  they 
were  unaware  of  the  great  conflict  that  raged  in 
the  field,  he  looked  with  a  corroding  envy  upon 
every  civilian  who  knew  the  barracks  walls  only 
from  without.  He  hated,  yes,  hated  this  mill 
that  ground  out  of  one  every  bit  of  pride,  of  will, 
of  the  consciousness  of  one's  true  self. 

He  arose  with  a  groan  and  listened  to  the  sol- 
emn stillness  that  filled  the  house.  The  evening 
before  the  men  who  had  been  granted  leave  of 
absence  had  marched  off  in  columns  to  the  sta- 
tion; only  the  "city-fellows,"  who  had  neither 
field  nor  family,  had  remained  even  during  the 
holidays  tied  to  the  post  like  rebellious  foals. 
He  had  been  envious  even  of  these  peasants !  He 
would  have  been  glad  to  change  places  with  any 
one  of  them,  only  to  escape  for  a  few  days  to  a 

5 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

place  beyond  the  reach  of  the  drill-sergeant's 
voice.  .  .  . 

With   slothful,   dragging  steps  he  wandered 
through  the  room,  wretchedly  depressed,  pro- 
foundly disgusted,  his  hands  involuntarily  held 
away  from  him  as  though  he  were  afraid  of 
touching  his  own  body.     The  Prussian  mason, 
who  had  the  bed  to  the  right  of  him,  had  infected 
him  with  his  horrible  comparison.     "Wipes  his 
nose  on  us!"  the  man  would  say  whenever  Ser- 
geant Stuff  poured  out  over  the  battalion  the 
vials  of  his  wrath.    And  it  seemed  to  Gadsky  as 
though  this  image  had  penetrated  him  with  an 
insufferable  feeling  of  inner  uncleanliness  and 
violation.    He  was  forced  to  think  of  the  dirty 
towels  that  every  one  in  passing  could  use.    God 
knows,  his  soul,  too,  bore  the  finger-prints  of  all 
his  superiors.  ...  In  all  the  thirty-three  years 
of  his  life  his  sensitive  personal  dignity  had  not 
been  so  wounded  as  in  these  nine  weeks.    And 
why?    Because  of  his  own  free  resolve  he  had 
assumed  the  heavy  burden  and  had  volunteered 
for  military  service.     That  was  the  reason  for 
which  he  was  now  forced  to  see  himself  af- 
fronted, degraded,  shamed,  held  in  contempt  by 
common,  narrow-minded  creatures.    What  an  act 
of  madness  had  he  been  guilty  of! 

Full  of  grim  rage  he  sat  farther  back  on  his 
bed  am*  dug  at  his  wounds.  What  had  impelled 
him  toward  the  fateful  step?  On  all  sides  he 
had  been  advised  against  it ;  to  the  last  moment 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

influential  friends  had  offered  to  liberate  him 
from  the  obligation  he  had  assumed ;  stubbornly 
he  had  held  fast  to  his  resolve.  How  could  he 
suspect  that  things  would  come  about  thus?  .  .  . 
The  mad,  seething  indignation  arose  in  him  again 
at  the  memory  of  his  introduction  to  the  bar- 
racks when  at  once,  as  though  to  enlighten  him 
as  to  his  position,  the  arrogant  voice  of  the  ser- 
geant fell  on  his  ears  and  he,  George  Gadsky, 
but  a  few  moments  ago  the  famous  pianist  whom 
reigning  sovereigns  invited  to  their  board,  stood 
as  if  he  had  been  struck  in  the  presence  of  those 
innumerable  servile  grins.  Instead  of  the  re- 
spect which  was  due  to  his  determination,  he  met 
venomous  scorn;  as  though  he  needed  to  be 
vdoubly  humiliated  for  the  greatness  of  his  renun- 
ciation, for  his  ability,  for  the  position  in  life 
that  he  had  conquered.  His  colleagues,  however, 
who  were  "kind  enough"  to  play  a  few  pieces  for 
the  benefit  of  some  war  charity,  reaped  a  harvest 
of  warm  gratitude  for  their  sacrifices  in  all  the 
papers. 

Outraging  all  rules  and  regulations  he  threw 
himself  fully  on  the  hard  cot  and  closed  his  eyes. 

Didn't  Mathilde  share  his  guilt  just  a  little, 
after  all?  Although  she  denied  it,  she  had,  dur- 
ing those  first  days,  become  again  wholly  the 
daughter  of  her  Prussian  officer  father;  she  had 
hastened  to  the  window  with  glowing  eyes  when- 
ever troops  passed  by ;  she  had  waited  for  hours 
for  telegrams  in  front  of  the  newspaper  bulletin 

7 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

boards.  Everything  went  too  slowly  for  her, 
every  one  was  too  lukewarm,  too  indifferent.  The 
whole  South  German  atmosphere  made  her  ner- 
vous. She  would  have  preferred  to  hasten  to 
Berlin  at  once,  so  estranged  did  she  suddenly 
feel  herself  from  the  city  she  had  loved  so  deeply. 
Externally,  of  course,  everything  went  in  its 
wonted  groove;  he  escorted  her  to  the  theater 
and  called  for  her  later  when  the  rehearsal  was 
over  and  she  offered  her  lips  for  his  kiss.  But  it 
was  like  a  passion  embalmed,  like  a  receipt  given 
for  a  happiness  once  enjoyed.  The  artist  in  her 
who  had  transcended  all  prejudices,  had  broken 
for  the  love  of  him  with  all  her  noble  kinsmen — 
she  had  vanished.  There  remained  the  Baroness 
von  Moellnitz!  What  could  the  virtuoso  Gad- 
sky,  what  could  his  strumming  mean  to  her?  In- 
fected by  the  blind  exaltation  of  those  days  she 
confused  war  with  the  pageantry  of  the  victor, 
and  saw  only  banners  and  arches  of  triumph 
where  reality  marked  the  path  with  graves  and 
hills  of  mangled  men?  .  .  . 

Now  to  be  sure  she  averted  her  face  from  the 
unheard-of  butchery !  Now  she,  too,  declared  it 
to  be  a  crime  that  he  should  waste  his  hands — 
his  "incomparable"  hands,  as  she  used  to  say — 
on  a  rifle  that  any  one  else  could  fire  as  well. 
To-day  she  acknowledged  again  the  rights  of  art 
as  well  as  of  war.  Should  he  have  waited  pa- 
tiently until  she  found  her  way  back  to  him? 
Should  he  have  insisted  shamelessly  upon  his 
8 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

due,  like  a  creditor?  .  .  .  Was  it  strange  that  he 
should  have  caught  the  intoxication  of  her  mood? 

With  a  sudden  start  he  sprang  up,  smoothed 
the  bed  quickly  and  resumed  his  wandering  about 
the  room.  No!  By  heaven,  no!  Had  he  sunk 
so  low  as  to  take  moral  refuge  behind  a  woman? 
Was  he  to  roll  off  the  responsibility  for  his  deeds 
upon  his  beloved?  .  .  .  God  knows,  these  were 
queer  results  of  this  institution  for  the  training 
of  men!  It  taught  its  pupils  trembling  and 
dread  in  the  matter  of  buttons  and  chevrons  and 
insignia  to  prepare  them  for  an  heroic  mood! 

He  drew  himself  up  proudly  and  hurled  the 
mean  suspicion  far  from  him.  He  himself  was 
guilty  and  he  alone.  It  was  his  insane  ambition, 
his  arrogance,  his  passion  for  always  playing  for 
the  highest  stakes  that  had  driven  him  into  this 
adventure.  Had  the  war  come  a  year  earlier  or 
a  year  later  he  would  have  reconsidered  this  step 
many  times.  Only  in  this  special  year,  at  this 
fatal  moment,  the  temptation  should  not  have 
come  to  him! 

He  had  just  come  home.  He  lay  in  the  har- 
bor, slothful  and  without  desires,  with  all  sails 
slackened.  He  had  brought  with  him  a  wealth  of 
shining  memories  and  had  nothing  to  ask  of  the 
future.  No  dream  could  equal  the  reality  of  his 
immediate  past.  Three  incomparably  successful 
concert  tours  had  filled  the  past  three  years.  A 
triumphal  progress  through  America,  an  exten- 
sive trip  through  Russia  had  loaded  him  down 

9 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

with  such  a  mass  of  roubles  and  dollars  that  tie 
sometimes  suspected  it  to  be  impossible  that  so 
much  money  could  be  honestly  gained!  .  .  .  He 
made  himself  a  home  that  realized  the  fulfill- 
ment of  his  wishes  to  the  smallest  detail.  The 
books  that  he  had  gathered  from  the  ends  of  the 
earth  were  clothed  in  precious  bindings  and 
framed  his  daily  life.  .  .  .  Only  one  worm 
gnawed  at  the  core  of  his  happiness.  He  had 
lately  lost  his  mother  and  there  was  no  one  with 
whom  he  could  share  his  marvelous  fortune. 
Then  quite  by  chance,  in  Paris,  where  they 
treated  him  like  an  uncrowned  king — he  met 
Mathilde.  And  before  they  had  attained  a  full 
awareness  of  it,  they  were  caught  in  each  other's 
web  of  life.  She  gave  herself  to  him,  careless  of 
her  repute  and  name  as  though  these  were  the 
merest  trash.  For  in  her  there  stormed  the 
heavy,  stubborn  passion  of  women  who  are  late 
to  awaken.  She  wanted  no  support  but  that  of 
his  arms.  He  was  shamed  by  the  greatness  of 
her  sacrifice.  He  set  all  possible  influences  in 
motion  and  did  not  rest  until,  with  a  radiant  and 
protecting  delight,  he  could  go  to  her  with  her 
appointment  at  the  Court  Theater  in  his  hands. 

Thus  Spring  found  them  ifnder  one  roof,  sep- 
arated only  by  decent  concessions  to  conven- 
tionality, and  their  days  flowed  on  like  a  river 
that  digs  its  bed  deeper  from  day  to  day  but 
also  flows  on  ever  more  broadly  and  slowly. 

And  thus  there  lay  behind  him  as  a  height 
that  he  had  truly  conquered  all  that  he  had  set 
10 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

himself  as  his  farthest  aim  of  fairy-like  and  un- 
imaginable splendor — he,  the  station  master's 
son  in  the  grimy  mining  village. 

So  at  the  age  of  thirty-three  he  was  satiated 
with  life.  The  years  promised  only  the  collec- 
tion of  more  money  for  more  concerts. 

Then  came  the  war! 

Before  him  there  stretched  suddenly  a  new 
way,  the  unhoped  for  possibility  of  beginning 
over  again.  It  was  that  which  had  been  so  se- 
ductive— that  only !  To  stake  his  whole  self  with 
all  he  had  attained  on  the  hazard  of  war,  to  hurl 
himself  into  this  ocean  of  field-gray  drops  that 
devoured  every  one  who  was  not  strong  and 
brave  and  manly  enough  to  work  himself  up — 
how  could  he  have  withstood  this  temptation  of 
proving  himself  and  conquering  life  anew? 

A  dream  had  been  his  fate — the  dream  of  re- 
turning to  Mathilde  a  hero,  an  officer  glittering 
with  decorations,  a  man  who  had  twice  con- 
quered the  world !  .  .  .  He  had  run  into  destruc- 
tion as  blindly  and  as  rawly  as  a  foolish  boy  who 
has  read  "Robinson  Crusoe"  and  sneaks  away 
from  his  father's  house  by  night.  Now  he  was 
in  the  trap,  the  thongs  held  fast,  and  he  stared 
back  to  the  freedom  he  had  so  rashly  thrown 
aside ! 

Burning  with  rage  he  stopped  in  the  middle 
of  the  room.  He  glanced  over  at  the  two  others. 
They,  at  least,  had  no  reason  to  torment  them- 
selves with  self-reproach.  They  had  obeyed  a 
command  and  an  iron  compulsion.  Full  of  ha- 
ll 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

tred  he  observed  Frobel,  who  was  just  packing 
up  his  razors  and  humming  a  song  and  who  now 
slipped  on  his  gray  military  coat  If  only  a 
kindly  fairy  had  shown  him  this  obliging,  intimi- 
dated little  common  school  teacher.  He  would 
have  been  saved.  Of  course,  he  would  have 
laughed  any  common  mortal  to  scorn  who  would 
have  come  to  him  with  the  impossible  prophecy 
that  this  poverty-stricken,  cowardly  creature 
would  get  the  better  of  him  in  the  army.  In  the 
army!  In  an  organization  which,  according  to 
his  mistaken  notions,  demanded  above  all  an  in- 
dependent spirit,  proud  self-confidence,  stubborn- 
ness and  endurance  of  mind  and  could  have  no 
patience  with  flatterers  and  lick-spittles. 

With  clenched  fists  he  turned  away  and  ap- 
proached Weiler,  who  sat  on  a  trunk  in  front  of 
the  second  window,  bent  over  the  proof -sheets  of 
his  second  volume.  Wasn't  it  curious  that  pre- 
cisely these  two  men  to  whom  he  had  spoken  the 
very  first  day,  when  they  were  still  awaiting  ad- 
mittance at  the  gate  of  the  barracks,  should  con- 
stitute his  whole  society?  ...  He  recalled  that 
cold,  foggy  morning,  the  shivering  figures  with 
their  hostile  eyes,  his  own  terror  at  the  sight  of 
these  men  who  were  to  be  his  daily  companions. 
Blunted  and  abused  by  life,  they  stood  there  as 
though  they  were  dragging  heavy  weights,  neg- 
lected in  soul  and  body.  And  from  the  midst  of 
this  somber  crowd  there  had  arisen  an  odor  as 
though  one  had  just  opened  a  cellar  door.  .  .  . 
The  envious  glances  that  had  met  his  elegant  gar- 


THE  JUDGMENT  OP  PEACE 

ments  had  made  him  feel  naked;  his  eyes  had 
yearningly  sought  in  that  mass  for  some  kindred 
soul  from  his  own  world. 

Thus  he  had  found  Weiler,  nervously  huddled 
against  a  pillar.  He  had  taken  him  to  be  a  hum- 
ble, good-natured  bank-clerk.  And  there  had 
arisen  in  him  a  great  cry  of  joy  when  he  had 
found  in  him  the  exquisite,  self-willed  poet  whom 
he  had  so  often  defended  against  the  judgment 
of  the  uncomprehending.  At  once  a  magic  circle 
had  been  drawn  about  them ;  they  stood  as  upon 
an  island,  in  the  protection  of  their  common  in- 
terests. Their  isolation  had  allured  Frobel, 
whose  girlish  timidity  had  made  him  the  butt  of 
coarse  jesters.  He  had  remained  faithful  to 
them  in  spite  of  the  shadow  which  their  unpopu- 
larity with  the  officers  cast  upon  his  unblemished 
conduct.  And  this  devotion  forced  Gadsky  to 
a  more  charitable  view  of  the  man's  weaknesses. 

"Are  you  going  already?"  he  called  out  to  him, 
astonished,  as  he  saw  him  going  toward  the  door 
in  his  cap,  coat  and  side-arm. 

"To  be  sure !"  Frobel  answered  happily.  "Ser- 
geant Stuff  has  kindly  permitted  me  to  go  with- 
out reporting  to  him  first." 

Gadsky  lowered  his  head  to  hide  the  bitter 
smile  that  stole  into  his  face.  By  God,  that  was 
the  right  man  for  these  people.  Not  even  in  the 
great  man's  absence  did  he  dare  to  omit  the 
formulas  of  respect  in  uttering  his  name.  His 
bearded  face  was  radiant  over  the  gracious  per- 
mission accorded  him  as  if  he  were  a  pupil  in 

13 


THE  JUDGMENT  OP  PEACE 

his  own  school  and  not  a  teacher  and  the  father 
of  a  family. 

"A  non-com  in  the  making!  Do  you  realize 
that?"  Gadsky  called  out  jeeringly  to  Weiler  and 
pointed  to  the  door  which  had  just  closed  be- 
hind Frobel.  "The  only  one  who  is  being  found 
worthy.  It  is  probably  assumed  that  a  man  ac- 
customed to  wield  the  ferule  will  strike  the  right 
note  in  dealing  with  us  recruits.  Would  you 
have  dreamed  that  precisely  his  qualities  are  sup- 
posed to  adorn  the  warrior?" 

Nervously  he  paced  the  room  and  then  added, 
with  a  wave  of  anger :  "It's  a  disgrace  that  they 
promote  a  fellow  whose  eyes  water  at  the  mere 
notion  of  going  into  the  field,  the  worst  coward 
in  the  whole  battalion,  simply  because  .  .  . 

Weiler  had  folded  up  his  manuscript  and 
gazed  with  astonishment  into  Gadsky's  bitter 
face. 

"Why  do  you  use  that  ugly  word?"  he  inter- 
rupted him  quietly.  "What's  the  meaning  of 
that  word — coward?  When  poor  Frobel  hears 
people  talk  about  an  attack  or  about  grenades 
he  simply  can't  help  seeing  his  own  body  dead 
or  dreadfully  mutilated.  His  imagination  sum- 
mons up  these  repulsive  visions.  He  can't  help 
that.  Were  he  able  to  see  himself  coming  safe 
through  every  hail  of  bullets  and  returning  home 
as  a  hero  and  decorated — why,  he  wouldn't  be 
a  coward  any  longer.  It's  a  matter  of  tempera- 
ment. Even  the  old  artillery  Colonel  Bonaparte 
grew  pale  when  the  grenades  came  up  near  him 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

the  first  time,  and  when  an  old  ruffian  of  a  gen- 
eral asked  him  ironically  whether  he  was  scared, 
he  gave  the  immensely  superior  answer:  'If  you 
were  half  as  scared  as  I,  General,  you  would  have 
taken  to  your  heels  long  ago.' " 

Gadsky  shook  his  head.  "The  comparison  be- 
tween Napoleon  and  Frobel  strikes  me  as  rather 
bold."  He  was  irritated.  "It  depends,  after  all, 
on  what  one  has  to  lose — the  crown  of  France  or 
Frobel's  two-room  apartment.  I  don't,  of  course, 
mean  to  compare  myself  to  Napoleon,  but  I  do 
risk  somewhat  higher  stakes  than  Frobel.  For 
ten  long  years  they  jeered  at  me  and  beat  me 
around  at  home  to  get  what  they  called  foolish 
notions  out  of  me.  Then,  for  ten  more  years  I 
was  as  pitiless  to  myself  as  an  animal  trainer 
to  his  beasts,  driving  myself  back  to  the  piano 
again  and  again.  And  then,  at  last,  the  goal  I 
had  dreamed  of  was  reached.  Then  one  day 
George  Gadsky  himself  sat  as  a  passenger  in  the 
Orient  express  that  he  had  seen  flitting  by  the 
little  station  daily,  and  himself  flitted  by  the 
scenes  of  his  torment,  the  walls  and  bushes  that 
had  seen  him  weep  and  grind  his  teeth!  Meas- 
ure my  loss!  Consider  what  it  means  to  have 
conquered,  to  have  become  oneself  a  sort  of  ex- 
press train  that  rushes  past  saluting  masses  of 
men  on  tracks  cleared  for  its  coming.  .  .  ." 

"Do  you  believe  that,  to  him,  poor  Frobel's 
life  means  less.  .  .  ?"  Weiler  did  not  continue. 
The  speech  seemed  suddenly  to  snap  off.  Gad- 
sky  followed  his  friend's  eyes  and  became  petri- 

15 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

fied  in  the  attitude  of  "attention"  at  the  sight 
of  the  sergeant  who  had  just  noisily  pushed 
open  the  door  and  entered.  At  once  the  room 
was  filled  with  a  breathless  silence  as  though  an 
extraordinary  tension  proceeded  from  the  stocky, 
broad-shouldered  man — a  tension  that  might 
snap  at  any  moment.  His  little,  suspicious  eyes 
hunted  flickeringly  in  all  corners,  glided  over 
the  beds  and  shelves,  seeking  some  infraction  of 
regulations.  Then  Sergeant  Stuff,  snorting 
softly,  came  very  close  up  to  Gadsky  and  re- 
mained standing  there.  Instinctively  he  felt  the 
hatred  that  met  him  and  his  own  hostility  was 
thus  kindled  at  once.  Up  to  the  very  door  he  had 
been  in  the  best  of  humors  and  had  firmly  deter- 
mined to  be  gracious  and,  as  an  exception,  to 
make  no  difficulties  for  the  two  black  sheep. 
Christmas  was  at  hand,  most  of  the  recruits  were 
absent  on  leave,  there  was  little  work  in  the 
empty  house,  and  this  in  itself  softened  him. 
Also,  he  had  won  at  cards  in  the  morning,  had 
been  invited  to  a  birthday  party  for  the  rest  of 
the  day — in  short,  he  hadn't  any  taste  for  play- 
ing the  ogre.  But  the  mere  sight  of  Gadsky, 
the  aloof  and  determined  carriage  of  the  man's 
head,  unchained  his  anger  anew  and  all  his  round 
body  seemed  to  contract  as  though  to  overwhelm 
the  opposition  that  arose  in  such  silence  before 
him. 

Sergeant  Stuff  was  nothing  less  than  a  tor- 
mentor of  his  men.  He  considered  himself  rather 
kindly  and  charitable  so  far  as  it  was  consonant 
16 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

with  his  own  dignity  and  the  difficult  task  of 
drilling  some  discipline  into  the  annual  hordes 
of  raw  recruits.  He  nourished,  in  fact,  a  sort  of 
inner  ambition  to  be  known  as  a  "fatherly"  offi- 
cer and  the  aggressive  pride  of  this  damned 
strummer  enraged  him  utterly.  He  was  accus- 
tomed to  forbid  the  man  as  punishment  to  go 
out,  to  let  mercy  prevail  at  the  last  moment, 
and  in  that  case  to  get  his  proper  due  in  the 
form  of  a  humble  and  grateful  glance,  at  least. 
That  the  war  had  brought  him  so  many  recruits 
who  were  bundles  of  old  bones  was  repulsive  to 
himself;  it  would  not  persuade  him  to  alter  his 
system.  Gadsky's  consciousness  of  personality, 
his  silent  refusal  to  adopt  an  attitude  of  adora- 
tion toward  "his  sergeant" — this  whole  negative 
attitude  composed  of  pride  and  malicious  con- 
scientiousness in  matters  of  duty  would  have  to 
be  conquered.  A  recruit  who  refused  to  be 
treated  by  his  sergeant  with  condescension  and 
indulgence,  who  received  every  familiarity  and 
every  jest  with  an  icy  seriousness,  was  a  stub- 
born dog  who  had  to  be  hustled  about  until  he 
would  eat  out  of  your  hand.  What  right  had 
the  rascal  to  stare  with  eyes  full  of  gall  and  ha- 
tred, as  though  he  saw  the  fiend  incarnate,  at  the 
excellent  Papa  Stuff  whom  all  his  soldiers  loved? 
"I'll  manage  to  show  you !"  he  hissed,  without 
any  introduction,  fairly  into  his  face.  And  his 
forehead  grew  positively  scarlet  as  Gadsky  re- 
mained faultlessly  standing  there  without  a  trace 
of  pallor,  but  on  the  contrary  with  a  malicious, 

17 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

cold  contempt  in  his  eyes.  "You'll  find  out  who 
of  us  is  the  stronger !"  the  sergeant  completed  his 
threat  and  went  over  to  Weiler  to  gain  time.  For 
a  moment  Stuff  felt  tempted  to  be  serious  for 
once  and  spoil  this  pig-headed  fellow's  holidays 
for  him  thoroughly.  Only  his  instinctive  feeling 
that  it  was  easier  to  break  this  man's  bones  than 
his  will,  caused  him  to  dismiss  the  plan  again. 
He  inspected  Weiler  quite  superficially,  pulled 
his  coat  straight,  informed  him  that  he  desired 
his  shoes  to  shine  more  brilliantly  in  future,  and 
waddled  back  to  Gadsky  with  a  divided  mind. 

Again  it  became  so  silent  in  the  room  that  each 
man  could  hear  his  pulses  beat.  In  that  interval 
Stuff  had  decided  upon  merely  a  small  repri- 
mand. After  brief  consideration  he  put  his  hand 
on  the  middle  button  on  Gadsky's  chest.  "Why 
hasn't  this  button  been  polished?"  he  roared. 

Gadsky  remained  silent. 

"Are  you  deaf?"  Stuff's  voice  made  the  very 
windows  rattle.  "Why  didn't  you  polish  your 
buttons  properly?" 

"I  beg  to  report  that  I  have  polished  them," 
Gadsky  answered  with  icy  calm. 

The  sergeant  foamed.  The  practice  of  long 
years  had  enabled  him  to  feel  that  a  button  which 
he  didn't  desire  to  be  polished  was  dirty,  even 
if  his  eyes  discovered  no  evidence  of  the  fact, 
"Polished?  You  call  that  polished?  If  you  don't 
report  to  me  in  fifteen  minutes,  downstairs  in 
front  of  the  sentries,  with  shining  buttons,  you'll 
18 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

stay  in  the  barracks — to-day  and  on  the  two 
Christmas  holidays.  Understand  me?" 

"Yes,  sir." 

He  heard  the  words  as  he  slammed  the  door 
thunderously  behind  him  and,  sweating  with  ex- 
citement, went  down  the  stairs  to  his  wife,  who 
was  awaiting  him  at  the  gate.  With  a  wild  grunt 
he  informed  her  that  she  would  have  to  wait  a 
few  minutes  and  ungraciously  turned  his  back 
to  her. 

He  was  dissatisfied  with  himself.  Why  had 
he  been  betrayed  into  making  a  scene  again? 
What  sense  was  there  in  it?  Such  ways  made 
the  fellow  only  more  stubborn.  Either  one  must 
go  at  him  thoroughly,  or  not  at  all !  Either  let 
him  dangle  till  he  crashed  down,  or  ...  He 
considered  thoughtfully  all  the  methods  at  his 
command  and  threw  murderous  glances  at  his 
wife  as  often  as  she  passed  him.  The  whole 
nasty  mess  was  her  fault.  It  had  been  her  idea 
to  order  the  newly  arrived  strummer  to  report 
in  their  dwelling  to  play  something  for  their 
guests,  two  cavalry  non-coms,  and  their  wives. 
When,  thereupon,  the  fellow  had  the  impudence 
to  declare  that  the  piano  was  too  out  of  tune  for 
him  to  play  on  it — it  had  cost  six  hundred  marks ! 
— and  also  to  pretend  that  he,  a  famous  virtuoso, 
didn't  even  know  the  song:  "Baby,  you  are  my 
eyes'  delight,"  which  his  guests  had  wanted  to 
hear — well,  nothing  had  been  left  but  to  let  him 
go  his  ways.  They  had  been  made  to  look  like 
fools  before  the  cavalry  men,  who  hadn't  spared 

19 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

them  some  pointed  remarks.  What  could  one 
do  against  a  man  who  refused  a  favor  to  his  ser- 
geant instead  of  being  honored  by  the  chance? 
He  had  no  right  to  force  him  in  this  matter  which 
was  strictly  beyond  the  jurisdiction  of  the  serv- 
ice. But  the  man  would  have  to  learn  what  it 
meant  to  behave  arrogantly  toward  one's  imme- 
diate superior !  .  .  .  And  from  that  time  on  there 
was  no  halting  the  matter,  which  grew  worse 
from  day  to  day.  The  fool  carried  himself  more 
haughtily  the  more  one  tried  to  humiliate  him: 
he  wouldn't  yield,  and  yet  he  would  have  to  be 
taught  some  sense  of  inferiority.  It  would  have 
to  be  done.  Stuff  clenched  his  fist  and  assured 
himself  that  there  was  no  other  way  out — 
none! 

"Is  it  that  there  Gadsky  again?"  his  wife 
lisped,  full  of  curiosity  and  of  pity  for  her  poor, 
plagued  husband  who  couldn't  even  enjoy  his 
Sundays  in  peace.  But  the  answer  that  hurtled 
over  her  made  her  consider  it  more  advisable  to 
withdraw.  And  so  she  awaited  the  possible  ful- 
fillment of  her  hopes  at  a  short  distance. 

Before  her  husband  had  led  her  from  the 
kitchen  of  his  regimental  commander  to  the  al- 
tar, Mrs.  Stuff  had  been  for  years  cook  in  gen- 
tlemen's families,  and  her  desire  to  be  avenged 
for  the  humiliations  she  fancied  herself  to  have 
endured  still  flamed  high  in  her  heart.  She 
never  neglected  an  opportunity  to  let  well- 
groomed,  graduate  volunteers,  the  spoiled  sons  of 
her  former  tyrants,  wait  as  long  as  possible  in 
20 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

the  corridor  or  at  the  door  for  the  sergeant. 
And  she  had,  of  course,  little  pity  for  this  con- 
ceited fellow  who  had  made  her  look  foolish  be- 
fore her  guests.  Her  delight  was  great  when  the 
hated  wretch  really  appeared  and,  on  the  open 
street,  under  the  vivid  attention  of  passing  civil- 
ians, received  his  thunderous  reprimand.  A 
proud  satisfaction  radiated  from  her  red  face  as, 
arm  in  arm  with  her  mighty  lord,  she  rustled 
past  the  sinner  who  stood  rigidly  at  attention. 

Gadsky  ran  off  so  swiftly  that  Weiler's  short 
legs  had  difficulty  in  keeping  up.  "I  didn't  touch 
the  buttons!"  he  cried  and  his  voice  trembled 
with  suppressed  rage.  "Didn't  touch  them !  And 
yet  suddenly  they  were  bright  enough.  But  the 
man's  made  a  mistake.  He  can't  down  me  with 
such  chicanery." 

"He  may  not  be  as  ill-intentioned  as  you 
fancy,"  Weiler  said  soothingly.  "You  might  bet- 
ter, in  God's  name,  have  played  a  bit  for  him 
that  day." 

"What  should  I  have  done?"  Gadsky  stormed. 
"Perhaps  I  should  have  been  highly  honored? 
Why?  Pray  tell  me  why?  Because  I  came  to 
him  of  my  own  free  will  that  he  might  teach  me 
how  to  shoot,  to  throw  a  grenade  and  whatever 
else  the  practice  of  war  demands?  No,  my  dear 
fellow !  Let  them  torment  me  all  they  please — 
I  shall  remain  the  man  I  was  and  am.  A  self- 
respecting  man  who,  after  all,  has  learned  and 
achieved  something,  cannot  suddenly  count  for 
nothing  simply  because  he  has  slipped  into  this 

21 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

strait-jacket!"  And,  after  a  pause,  he  added 
grimly:  "If  he  weren't  so  stupid  he  would 
thank  me  for  defending  the  dignity  of  his  calling 
even  against  himself!  But  I  know  what  I'll  do. 
I'll  talk  to  Ensign  von  Krulow.  This  very  day. 
I  won't  let  this  damned  non-com,  annoy  me  any 
further." 

Weiler  didn't  answer.  He  knew  that  Gadsky 
was  far  too  proud  to  lodge  a  complaint.  Also  too 
wise  to  place  von  Krulow  in  so  embarrassing  a 
position.  For  the  experienced  old  sergeant  was 
far  more  highly  valued  by  the  captain  than  the 
boyish  ensign  who  was  far  too  indulgent  to  his 
inferiors.  It  would  be  the  last  straw  to  have  him 
take  the  part  of  the  recruit  against  the  drill 
sergeant! — By  the  time  they  reached  their  goal 
Gadsky  would  no  longer  think  of  complaining  to 
Krulow.  It  seemed  strange  to  Weiler  that  the 
words  and  actions  of  a  common,  stupid  fellow 
like  Stuff  could  really  touch  the  soul  of  a  man 
of  Gadsky's  rank.  But  did  he  not  still  walk  be- 
side him  with  flushed  cheeks  and  sparkling  eyes? 
.  .  .  Ah,  one  must  weave  oneself  into  one's  own 
web.  One  must  hide  oneself  beneath  a  protective 
covering  of  one's  own  dreams  and  thoughts ;  one 
must  let  all  this  military  life  with  its  limitations 
and  its  brutalities  pass  by  one  unconcernedly 
like  a  vision.  Of  course,  that,  too,  annoyed  the 
others!  Weiler  smiled  when  he  thought  of  the 
impotent  rage  that  his  dreamy  preoccupation 
often  aroused  in  those  about  him. 

Silently  they  hurried,  each  employed  with  his 
22 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

own  thoughts,  through  the  busy  turmoil;  they 
rode  for  a  long  part  of  the  way  in  the  over- 
crowded tramway,  still  without  exchanging  a 
word.  They  did  not  really  become  aware  of  each 
other  again  until  they  climbed  the  stairs  that 
led  to  Mathilde's  apartment.  On  the  second  floor 
they  had  to  pass  the  door  with  the  dull  brass- 
plate  that  bore  Gadsky's  name.  He  turned  away, 
and  yet  his  eyes  seemed  to  pierce  the  wall  and  to 
caress,  in  imagination,  the  books  on  his  shelves. 
His  tread  became  heavy.  As  though  constrained 
by  tender  arms  he  had  to  drag  himself  to  the 
next  landing  where  he  cried  out  to  Weiler  in  a 
tone  of  annoyance: 

"I  wish  you  wouldn't  run  so !" 

But  at  bottom  he  felt  flattered  and  a  satisfied 
smile  wavered  on  his  face.  Whoever  had  once 
fully  found  his  way  into  her  little  home  always 
returned  thither  like  a  pilgrim  to  his  patron 
saint. 

He  had  no  doubt  but  that  the  little  ensign  was 
upstairs  already. 

"Why  don't  you  come?"  Weiler  asked  him, 
leaning  across  the  balustrade. 

"Immediately!  Immediately!  Just  ring  the 
bell!"  he  replied  with  gentle  sarcasm. 

Every  one  hastens  to  her  like  a  child  to  its 
Christmas  tree — he  said  to  himself  proudly.  And 
the  bell  seemed  to  tinkle  like  the  bell  that  calls 
children  on  Christmas  Eve  to  their  gifts. 

In  the  anteroom  there  hung  next  to  the  en- 
sign's coat  an  ulster  of  rough  material  and  a 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

felt  hat  with  a  worn  rim.  "That  damned  Dorn- 
dorf  has  settled  down  inside  already!"  Gadsky 
grunted.  Weiler  smiled  wearily.  "Then  there 
will  be  a  dispute  again,"  he  said,  shrugging  his 
shoulders.  But  while  he  took  off  his  overcoat  he 
added  good-naturedly :  "After  all,  he's  a  faithful 
soul.  We  nearly  destroy  him  every  Sunday  and 
he  turns  up  again  as  if  nothing  had  happened." 

Gadsky  nodded  contemptuously.  He  had  al- 
ways hated  this  so-called  uncle,  and  since  the 
war  had  come  he  had  with  difficulty  restrained 
himself  from  putting  the  man  out  without  cere- 
mony. Somehow  or  other  he  was  related  to 
Mathilde  and  was  immensely  taken  with  his  own 
liberality  in  overlooking  her  well-known  rela- 
tions with  Gadsky.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  was 
attracted  by  the  exquisite  meals,  the  compli- 
mentary tickets  to  the  opera  and  the  other  little 
comforts  which  a  postal  official  of  middle  rank 
cannot  indulge  in  even  if  he  is  a  widower.  In  ad- 
dition he  was  proud  of  the  association. 

In  the  eyes  of  his  cronies  at  his  favorite  inn 
Mathilde  von  Moellnitz  was,  after  all,  a  scion 
of  a  noble  house  and  her  title  as  member  of  the 
Imperial  Opera  had  quite  another  importance 
there  than  it  had  among  the  members  of  the  von 
Moellnitz  family.  His  niece's  way  of  life  he  had 
screened  by  attaching  to  Gadsky — to  the  latter's 
profound  vexation — the  appellation  of  "intend- 
ed." Moreover,  since  her  appointment  as  lead- 
ing alto  to  the  Imperial  Opera  he  wore  a  broad- 
brimmed  felt  hat  and  a  shabby  artist's  tie. 
24 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

At  the  first  moment  Gadsky  felt  seriously 
tempted  to  turn  back.  After  the  undignified 
scene  with  Stuff  he  didn't  feel  the  least  inclina- 
tion to  let  the  "uncle"  excite  and  worry  him  too. 
For  since  August  the  old  man  had  let  the  mili- 
tary situation  go  to  his  head  and  boasted  as 
uninterruptedly  as  though  he  had  shattered  the 
gates  of  Liege  with  his  own  fist.  Was  it  worth 
while  to  be  drawn  into  an  angry  mood  again  by 
this  old  donkey? 

He  was  about  to  stretch  forth  his  hand  after 
his  cap  and  coat  when  the  door  opened  and 
Mathilde  appeared  with  the  tea-urn  in  her  hand. 
An  immediate  languor  passed  through  Gadsky 
as  he  saw  her  erect  in  her  exquisite  slenderness 
in  the  frame  of  the  door  and  drew  in  from  afar 
the  indescribable,  faint  fragrance  of  her.  He 
no  longer  thought  of  leaving.  But  a  stubborn, 
almost  malevolent  feeling  of  opposition,  a  dull, 
little  ache  of  hatred  arose  in  him  and  mastered 
the  tender  longing  which  had  brought  him  to 
her  door.  Every  Sunday  this  inner  conflict  was 
renewed.  .  .  .  Always  the  deep  yearning  for  her 
which  helped  him  bear  all  the  unworthy  annoy- 
ances of  the  barracks,  and  made  of  the  six  days 
only  one  weary  road  to  the  redemption  of  this; 
moment — disappeared  and  was  changed  into  an 
angry  revulsion.  Of  course  he  told  himself  that 
his  disappointment  would  be  far  greater  if  one 
fine  day  she  were  to  appear  plump  and  ill- 
groomed  and  neglected  in  order  to  adapt  herself 
more  perfectly  to  his  calloused  hands  and  entire 

25 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

condition.  He  knew  very  well  that  he  couldn't 
bear  the  sight  and  would  think  her  foolish  to 
want  to  look  like  a  cook  just  because  he  hap- 
pened to  be  looking  like  a  cook's  sweetheart.  And 
yet  at  every  meeting  he  was  overwhelmed  by  the 
ugly  little  suspicion  that  she  didn't  let  herself 
feel  his  fate  very  keenly.  ...  To  be  sure,  it  took 
only  a  few  minutes  for  this  inner  enmity  to  dis- 
appear. The  peace  that  radiated  from  her  up- 
lifted him  and  the  sergeant,  the  captain  and  the 
barracks  sank  into  nothingness.  But  when  Mon- 
day came,  it  was  devilish  hard  to  become  once 
more  the  infantryman  Gadsky  and  when  another 
week  was  gone  that  strange  hostility  had  grown 
again.  She  greeted  Weiler  first  and  let  him  pass 
her  into  the  room.  Tenderly  she  drew  Gadsky 
close  to  her  and  ran  her  hand  through  his  hair. 

"Take  care,"  he  said,  "you'll  ruin  your  lovely 
frock!"  He  stepped  back  and  his  lips  became 
hard  and  narrow.  But  the  frightened  look  that 
met  his  was  so  full  of  understanding  and  sym- 
pathy, that  he  at  once  regretted  his  words,  raised 
her  slender,  fragrant  hand  to  his  lips  and  kissed 
each  finger  separately. 

Desire  enfolded  them  like  a  great  mantle. 
Their  eyes  closed  and  they  sank  away  from  the 
world.  Then  he,  still  breathing  deeply  from  that 
contact,  went  in  to  the  others.  He  shook  hands 
with  the  ensign  and  passed  Dorndorf  with  a 
frown.  The  forced,  distrustful  friendliness  of  the 
old  hypocrite  drove  him  to  a  cold  resistance. 

"I'm  surprised  you're  so  happy  to-day,"  he 
26 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

called  out  to  him.  "You  haven't  won  a  single 
victory  all  week." 

"I  will  again!  Don't  worry!  Give  me  time!" 
Dorndorf  replied  with  a  sweetish  grin  and 
glanced  at  him  hatefully  afterwards.  "I  am  just 
hearing  to  my  regret  that  you  haven't  had  a  very 
pleasant  week  either!"  He  pointed  to  Ensign 
von  Kriilow  whom  Weiler  had  just  been  inform- 
ing of  Stuff's  latest  shamelessness. 

"Do  let  that  go!  I  didn't  ask  you  to  be  my 
defender,"  Gadsky  said  harshly  and  tried  to  lure 
Mathilde  away  from  the  others.  He  didn't  like 
to  have  her  learn  of  his  sufferings;  he  felt 
shamed  before  her  like  a  punished  child.  "Come, 
dear !  Don't  worry  about  all  that  nonsense,"  he 
begged  insistently.  But  she  had  caught  the  first 
words  and  eluded  him  and  went  to  the  others 
with  her  little  head  slightly  bent  forward  and 
her  nostrils  vibrating. 

Then  he  became  seriously  vexed  and  called  out 
indignantly  to  Weiler:  "Why  don't  you  com- 
plain of  your  own  fate?  Heaven  knows  you're 
not  less  tormented  than  I!"  He  turned  away 
angrily,  as  though  the  whole  conversation  didn't 
concern  him,  strolled  to  the  piano  and  began  to 
improvise  very  softly.  In  his  heart  he  was  deeply 
touched  by  Weiler's  zeal.  The  poor  fellow  with 
his  fragile,  powerless  limbs  suffered  more  than 
any  other.  Every  night  he  broke  down  in  exhaus- 
tion and  in  the  guise  of  a  "measly  rag"  and  a 
"lazy  hound"  enjoyed  the  particular  attentions 
of  the  captain.  And  vet  he  bore  it  all  with  the 

27 


THE  JUDGMENT  OP  PEACE 

dumb  patience  of  a  Buddhist  saint.  Yet  his  in- 
dignation flamed  up  over  every  injustice  suffered 
by  others.  Now  again  he  stormed  against  the 
whole  system  of  arrogance  and  violence  with  a 
passion  that  abashed  the  uncle,  so  that  the  lat- 
ter's  replies  sounded  like  the  breathless  cries  of  a 
swimmer  against  the  stream. 

"Precisely  you  have  no  right  to  say  that — you 
of  all  people !"  Weiler  was  saying  in  an  outraged 
tone.  "Discipline  is  an  entirely  different  thing. 
And  why  do  you  always  seek  help  from  some  per- 
fectly stereotyped  word  like  that?  Stick  to  the 
point  and  tell  me  why  the  pianist  George  Gadsky 
whom  no  one  dared  with  impunity  to  call  an 
idiot  or  an  ass,  who  would  permit  no  one  to 
treat  him  boorishly  so  long  as  he  was  a  civilian 
— why  this  same  man  is  robbed  of  every  shadow 
of  his  sensitiveness  and  honor?  That,  I  suppose, 
is  your  idea  of  the  especial  respect  which  you  are 
always  demanding  for  the  field-gray  garb  of 
honor?  Gadsky  is,  in  the  name  of  that,  to  be  in- 
sulted and  brow-beaten  by  a  fellow  who,  in  civil 
life,  might  conceivably  rise  to  be  a  janitor,  until 
he  leaves  for  the  front.  Then,  to  be  sure,  Ser- 
geant Stuff  remains  behind  in  order  to  continue 
his  fearless  attacks — on  new  recruits." 

Dorndorf's  face  took  on  an  expression  of  ugly 
delight.  He  had  been  a  bureaucrat  in  a  sub- 
ordinate position  all  his  life  and  had  had  to  bow 
down  and  scrape  before  others.  It  gave  him  a 
secret  joy  to  have  these  gentlemen  of  the  so-called 
28 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

liberal  professions  complain  of  the  force  that 
oppressed  them. 

"My  dear  fellow,"  he  said  with  quiet  satisfac- 
tion, "this  is  a  time  that  demands  some  sacrifice 
of  every  one.  One  man  loses  his  secure  existence, 
another,  like  Mr.  Gadsky,  must  give  up  his 
liberty,  a  third  must  deliver  his  sons  to  the  state, 
like  myself.  Do  you  think  it's  easy  for  me  to  sit 
here  with  the  consciousness  that  at  any  moment 
I  might  get  a  telegram  from  the  country  around 
Ypres  or  from  Poland?  Do  you  know  the  trouble 
and  the  money  it  took  to  get  two  boys  to  the 
point  where  one  might  expect  some  joy  of  them 
at  last?  And  now,  if  it's  God's  will,  they  may  be 
crippled  for  life,  or  I  may  never  see  either  one 
again.  It's  my  opinion  that  one  sacrifice  is 
worthy  of  another.  Or  do  you  believe  I  wouldn't 
much  rather  let  your  Mr.  Stuff  hound  me?" 

Gadsky  had  listened  with  an  annoyed  shake  of 
the  head  and  had  expressed  his  impatience 
through  thunderous  chords.  Now  he  was  sur- 
prised that  everything  was  so  silent  behind  him. 
For  when  once  Weiler's  temperament  had  been 
thoroughly  aroused,  his  timidity  was  quite  gone. 
And  surely  this  answer  of  Dorndorf's  was  a 
challenge.  He  stopped  playing  and  turned 
around,  for  the  silence  was  still  continuing. 

He  saw  that  Weiler  was  alarmingly  pale. 
There  was  something  crouching  in  his  attitude. 
His  eyes  were  fastened  on  Dorndorf.  One  could 
see  the  struggle  that  passed  within  him,  that 

29 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

he  made  effort  after  effort  to  speak  and  yet,  ere 
the  words  reached  his  lips,  recoiled  from  them. 

"For  heaven's  sake,  don't  eat  me  up,"  the  old 
man  jested  with  an  uneasy  vibration  in  his  voice. 

Then  suddenly  Weiler  made  a  gesture  of  lib- 
eration, threw  aside  all  scruples  with  a  deter- 
mined movement  of  his  shoulders  and  said:  "I 
can't — I  can't  bear  to  hear  that  falsehood  any 
longer !  It's  time  that  we  spoke  out.  .  .  ." 

"Falsehood?"  Dorndorf  was  frightened. 
"Where  do  you  see  any  falsehood?" 

Weiler  stepped  back  a  trifle.  His  knees 
trembled  with  excitement.  "Didn't  you  say  your- 
self just  now  that  it  took  a  long  time  until  one 
could  take  any  joy  in  one's  sons?  When  does 
that  time  come?  When  they  are  happy  and  well 
settled  in  life?  Yes.  But  in  addition  your  pa- 
ternal pride  wants  its  sop  too.  Or  would  you 
deny  that  there  are  parents  who  desire  their  own 
vanity  to  be  satisfied?  Think  of  the  many  who 
drive  their  dull  children  to  study,  who  would 
rather  see  them  break  down  under  the  burden 
than  deny  themselves  the  satisfaction  of  having 
sons  as  learned  as  their  neighbors!  Consider 
how  often  children  are  plunged  into  misery  be- 
cause they  seek  happiness  in  some  marriage  that 
does  not  satisfy  the  pride  of  their  parents !  How 
often — tell  me  yourself — how  often  do  parents 
become  the  enemies  of  their  own  flesh  and  blood 
because  the  children's  chosen  calling  wounds 
their  vanity.  Eight  in  this  room  there  are  three 
of  us,  thrown  together  by  chance.  Let  Gadsky 
30 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

tell  you  how,  to  his  last  breath,  his  father 
couldn't  forgive  him  for  having  become  an 
artist;  ask  Mr.  von  Kriilow  who  wanted  to  be 
a  painter  and  hated  nothing  as  he  hated  force 
of  any  kind,  by  what  means  he  was  driven  to  en- 
ter the  army !  And  I?  It  would  take  hours  for  me 
to  tell  you  of  all  the  little  tricks  and  underhand- 
ed bits  of  malice  to  which  my  mother  resorted 
— yes,  my  own  "widowed  mother — because  I  had 
turned  my  back  upon  my  father's  honorable  call- 
ing. Just  three  of  us,  you  see.  And  are  we  ex- 
ceptions? Rare  exceptions?  DQ  you  believe 
that?  I  tell  you  that  the  contrary  experience  is 
almost  the  exceptional  one.  Most  men  go  about 
the  education  of  their  children  quite  as  they  go 
at  any  other  undertaking.  For  two  decades  they 
sacrifice  their  money  and  care.  Then  they  pre- 
sent a  bill.  Most  of  them  desire  to  be  able  to  say 
with  self-satisfaction:  'My  son  took  his  doctor's 
degree  to-day,'  or  'he  has  been  made  chief  of  his 
governmental  department,  or  councilor,  or  direc- 
tor, or  has  married  the  daughter  of  the  wealthy 
Mr.  So  and  So.'  That  was  the  situation  in  times 
of  peace.  To-day  the  circumstances  have 
changed.  Whoever  wants  to  impress  his  friends 
and  relatives  to-day  and  has  a  taste  for  envious 
congratulations,  for  respect  and  approval,  must 
be  able  to  tell  a  different  story  of  his  sons.  Only 
he  who  has  a  letter  from  the  front  with  him,  only 
he  who  can  say  at  his  inn:  'My  son  was  at 
Tannenberg,  at  Ypres,'  only  he  who  can  tell  of  an 
iron  cross,  a  wound  or  the  death  of  some  descend- 

31 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

ant,  can  boast  of  his  fatherhood  to-day  with  up- 
lifted head.  So  the  boys  are  driven  forth!  If 
they  were  always  ruffians,  always  ready  to  fight, 
brutal  and  hard-hearted — so  much  the  better.  If 
they  were  sensitive,  averse  from  noise,  dreamers, 
they  have  a  hard  time  to-day.  Who  can  help 
them?  For  who  would  be  silent  when  others 
boast?  Who  would  be  the  father  of  a  slacker  in 
this  iron  time?  It  sounds  ugly,  I  know.  Don't 
be  offended,  Mr.  Dorndorf.  But  I  can't  keep  still 
any  longer.  I  seem  to  choke  when  the  old  men  in 
their  security,  in  their  clean  beds,  are  constantly 
admiring  themselves  and  declaiming  concerning 
their  sacrifices,  just  as  in  peace  they  rattled  the 
money  which  the  education  of  their  children  had 
cost  them.  I  don't  believe  that  one  ought  to  be 
silent  any  longer,  or  adopt  an  ostrich  policy. 
One  must  demolish  these  lies.  There  is  no  other 
pathway  to  the  hearts  of  men.  Not  until  these 
phrases  that  every  one  repeats  without  testing 
them,  not  until  they  are  destroyed  can  we  sting 
into  life  the  consciences  that  crouch  in  cowardly 
fashion  behind  a  wall  of  lies !" 

He  dropped  exhausted  into  a  chair  whicti 
Mathilde  had  moved  nearer  to  him  and  with 
trembling  hands  patted  his  forehead. 

"Phrases?  .  .  .  You  call  that  phrases  and 
lies?"  Dorndorf  growled  with  dull,  repressed 
rage,  and  his  hands,  too,  trembled.  "Then  I 
haven't  anything  further  to  say.  .  .  .  It's  neces- 
sary for  a  man  to  have  been  a  father  to " 

"But  uncle,  Mr.  Weiler  didn't  mean  you," 
32 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

Mathilde  attempted  to  interpose.  "We  know  that 

you're  the  kindest  father " 

"Of  course  not,"  Weiler  interrupted  her  eager- 
ly. His  kind  eyes  were  fixed  anxiously  on  the  old 
man.  His  soft,  feeling  voice  almost  pleaded: 
"Surely  you  don't  think  I  meant  you?  And 
surely  you  don't  believe  I  was  foolish  enough  to 
assert  that  there  are  no  unselfish  parents.  Of 
course  there  are — many,  many!  But  they're  not 
important  to-day.  They  suffer  their  children  to 
be  torn  from  them ;  they  don't  sacrifice  them.  It's 
the  word  sacrifice  that  I  can't  bear  to  hear  any 
longer.  And  not  to-day — of  all  days  .  .  .  On 
my  way  here,  I  couldn't  help  thinking  constantly 
of  an  article  I  read  in  last  night's  paper.  In  this 
article  it  was  made  abundantly  clear  that  there 
was  no  better  investment  than  the  war-loans.  It 
was  proven  with  the  utmost  exactness,  by  many 
examples,  that  the  bonds  represented  the  chance 
of  making  five  per  cent,  on  your  money  without 
a  shadow  of  risk,  and  with  the  additional  satis- 
faction of  serving  the  fatherland  by  a  patriotic 
action.  When  I  started  reading  that  last  night 
at  the  restaurant,  I  thought  it  was  a  joke.  And 
all  night  long  and  until  morning  came  I  won- 
dered and  wondered  why  men  are  willing  to  give 
up  their  sons  without  any  guarantee  that  they 
would  receive  them  back  uninjured,  without  ask- 
ing five  per  cent.,  solely  for  the  sake  of  the  honor 
of  doing  a  patriotic  action;  and  why,  on  the 
other  hand,  they  make  so  many  conditions  before 
they  give  up  their  money.  I  couldn't  understand 

33 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

why  the  state  didn't  conscript  banknotes,  since 
the  money  is  as  urgently  needed  as  the  sons  of 
men.  Surely  there  could  be  no  doubt  of  the 
citizens'  readiness  for  sacrifice?  Were  they  not 
glad  to  give,  without  chaffering,  their  own  flesh 
and  blood?  Well,  before  I  had  found  any  solu- 
tion for  my  riddle  I  received,  in  the  pattest  way, 
this  very  morning,  a  letter  from  my  uncle  in 
Cologne.  He  has  no  children  and  owns  a  whole- 
sale house  that  sells  skins  and  furs  and  he  has 
a  great  deal  of  money.  You  know  how  it  is  with 
rich  relations.  I  hadn't  heard  from  him  in  years. 
Now  he  wrote  with  the  most  astonishing  cor- 
diality. He  had  heard  that  I  had  been  called  to 
the  colors  and  so  he  sent  me  a  check  for  a  thou- 
sand. He  added  quite  magnanimously  that  I 
needn't  worry  a  bit  about  this  loan,  because  his 
entire  stock  had  been  taken  over  by  the  govern- 
ment at  a  splendid  price ;  he  was  in  a  position  to 
help  me  further,  if  necessary.  There,  you  see,  I 
was  confronted  for  a  second  time  by  the  same 
riddle.  Why,  I  brooded  and  worried  about  it 
again,  why  doesn't  the  state  simply  say :  'I  need 
boots  for  your  sons  to  march  in.  Hence  on  the 
23d  inst.  all  leather-merchants,  names  A — E,  and 
on  the  24th,  names  E — N,  and  so  on,  are  com- 
manded to  deliver  their  entire  stocks  at  X  bar- 
racks?' Was  it  possible — I  shuddered  at  the  ques- 
tion— that  the  state  has  so  low  an  opinion  of  its 
citizens'  devotion  that  it  does  not  dare  take  over 
their  money  and  their  banknotes  and  their  mer- 
chandise without  guaranteeing  a  profit?  And 
34 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

yet  it  took  their  sons  without  any  compensation 
...  I  struggled  against  the  explanation  that 
forced  itself  upon  me.  Oh,  I  struggled  des- 
perately !  I  thought  of  the  other  lands  at  war — • 
of  France,  England!  It  was  the  same  thing — 
the  same  .  .  .  Well,  at  noon,  while  we  were 
rinsing  our  dinner  pails,  my  comrade  Frobel 
was  telling  me  about  his  father.  The  old 
gentleman  has  a  farm  somewhere  in  the  foot- 
hills, and  so  he  has  excellent  prospects  now, 
because  the  state  is  paying  a  premium  to  all 
farmers  if  they'll  plant  just  what  the  fatherland 
needs  most  urgently.  I  didn't  quite  understand 
the  details  even  when  he  showed  me  the  news- 
paper clipping  that  his  father  had  sent  him.  But 
I  did  note  the  use  of  the  word  "stimulus."  It 
seemed  incomprehensible  to  me  that  the  same 
people  who  are  not  only  willing  to  give  up  their 
sons  to  slaughter,  but  actually  drive  them  forth 
with  enthusiasm — their  sons  who  are  the  very 
contents  of  their  lives,  the  consolation  of  their 
old  age — that  these  people  will  renounce  a  por- 
tion of  their  profits  only  on  condition  that  a  sum 
paid  as  a  "stimulus"  reimburses  them.  If  I'm 
wrong,  show  me  just  where  I  am.  And  if  you 
can,  I'll  be  glad  to  praise  a  spirit  of  sacrifice 
that  I  can't  quite  trust  as  long  as  it  stops  short 
at  one's  purse  and  not  at  one's  parental  love." 

He  had  grown  quite  calm  as  he  talked  on; 
he  was  a  little  hoarse  and  there  was  the  weari- 
ness of  a  deep  disgust  in  his  voice  as  though  he 
were  himself  ashamed  of  the  accusation  which 

35 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

he  uttered.  When  no  one  answered  him,  his 
eyes  wandered  in  a  frightened  way  among  those 
earnest  faces.  At  last,  with  a  sigh,  he  seemed  to 
sink  back  into  himself. 

No  one  found  an  answer.  An  oppressive  silence 
filled  the  room.  Gadsky  shrugged  his  shoulders 
significantly  and  swung  around  again  on  the 
piano-stool  toward  the  instrument.  He  had  been 
observing  Mathilde's  face.  The  infinitely  fine 
line  of  suffering  had  deepened  about  her  moutli 
while  Weiler  was  speaking.  Defiantly  he  tried 
to  expel  what  he  had  heard  from  his  conscious- 
ness and  let  his  fingers,  gentle  as  breathing,  run 
over  the  keys  while  he  thought  of  the  lovely 
Madonna-like  face  of  his  beloved. 

Dorndorf  didn't  speak  either.  He  stared  at  the 
carpet,  firmly  determined  not  to  answer  a  syl- 
lable to  the  wretched  slander.  He  had  been 
wounded  in  what  he  considered  his  most  sacred 
feelings,  in  his  paternal  dignity — the  only  kind 
he  had  conquered — and  privately  vowed  to  him- 
self that  he  would  not  cross  this  threshold  again 
until  Gadsky  and  Weiler  had  departed  for  the 
front. 

The  clear,  calm  voice  of  Ensign  von  Krtilow 
broke  the  long  silence.  They  all  listened;  even 
Gadsky  turned  around  surprised,  for  it  was,  so 
far  as  he  could  remember,  the  first  time  that 
Kriilow  had  entered  a  discussion  of  his  own  im- 
pulse. Usually  he  merely  followed  the  talk  with 
shining,  enthusiastic  eyes,  and  grew  embarrassed 
when  some  question  forced  him  to  join  in  the 
36 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

debate.  It  was  astonishing  that  he  should  begin 
to  speak  without  urging.  It  was  clear  that  lie 
was  overflowing  like  a  full  vessel  that  could  hold 
no  drop  more. 

"I  hope  you  won't  take  my  words  personally, 
Mr.  Dorndorf,"  he  began  hesitatingly.  His 
wavering  glance  sought  Mathilde's  face  as 
though  he  hoped  to  find  there  the  courage  he 
needed  to  go  on.  "I  don't  know  how  it  is  in 
your  circles.  But  in  my  family,  during  my  leave, 
I  had  never  to  wait  more  than  half  an  hour  to 
hear  the  question:  'Do  you  know  how  many  of 
us  have  already  fallen?'  Oh,  they  counted  up  the 
iron  crosses,  too.  But  that  was  a  secondary  con- 
sideration. It  was  rather  painful  for  a  man  iri 
uniform — this  disputing  among  kinsmen  who 
boasted  to  each  other  of  the  number  of  their 
dead.  It  was  even  more  painful  for  my  father 
who  at  that  time  had  distinctly  to  feel  humble 
with  his  three  entirely  unwounded  sons.  I 
actually  felt  apologetic  to  him  ..." 

"Oh,  you  ought  to  be  ashamed !"  Mathilde  said. 
She  didn't  want  to  believe  .  .  . 

But  Kriilow's  gentle  mouth  wore  a  smile  of 
bitter  superiority  in  knowledge.  The  others 
caught  it  from  him  and  Gadsky  laughed  as  he 
drove  a  merry  capriccio  across  the  keys. 

Dorndorf  alone  gazed  at  the  floor  in  somber 
silence.  He  didn't  care  particularly  about  the 
babble  of  the  two  others.  But  to  hear  an  active 
officer  and  the  son  of  a  general  speak  so — that 
pained  him  deeply.  Mathilde  caught  the  hateful 

37 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

glance  that  sprang  at  Krulow  from  under  the  old 
man's  bushy  eyebrows.  It  worried  her.  She 
feared  that  his  patriotism  was  not  above  writing 
an  anonymous  accusation  and  she  wanted  to 
prevent  Krtilow's  giving  himself  away  any  fur- 
ther. Swiftly  she  leaned  across  the  table  toward 
him,  "Tell  me,  Mr.  von  Krulow,  isn't  there  any 
possible  protection  from  the  malice  of  this  hor- 
rible Mr.  Stuff?  I  can't  bear  the  thought  that 
George  is  to  remain  quite  defenseless  against  the 
whims  of  a  coarse  fellow  like  that !" 

Krulow  blushed  as  he  always  did  when 
Mathilde's  eyes  rested  on  him.  He  shook  his  head 
regretfully.  "Discipline,  you  see  .  .  ."  he  said 
with  gentle  irony. 

"But  that's  not  discipline,  that's  slavery!" 
Mathilde  returned  indignantly.  "A  thoroughly 
wicked  person  like  that  might  torment  one  to 
death!" 

"He  isn't  such  a  devil  as  you  think,"  Gad- 
sky  said  over  his  shoulder  without  interrupting 
his  playing.  "If  he  were  actually  and  thoroughly 
bad,  one  could  console  oneself  with  the  reflection 
of  having  had  extraordinarily  bad  luck.  But  he's 
positively  good-natured.  You  can't  even  hate  him 
for  his  stupidity." 

"Gadsky  is  quite  right,"  Krulow  assured  her 
in  his  gentle,  careful  way.  "You  musn't  forget 
that  Stuff  has  been  a  sergeant  for  twenty  years. 
And  he  thinks  nothing  of  it  even  now  if  oc- 
casionally his  captain  does  him  an  injustice.  He 
is  accustomed  to  be  silent  no  matter  what  is  done 
38 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

to  him  by  those  above  him ;  he  has  no  feeling  of 
personal  honor  in  his  dealings  with  his  super- 
iors. If  you  were  to  tell  him  that  the  human  way 
of  walking  was  unworthy  of  us,  and  that  a  new 
way  of  locomotion  must  be  invented — he 
wouldn't  be  more  astonished  than  by  the  prop- 
osition that  he  is  to  treat  with  less  conscious 
superiority  a  recruit  who  has  great  knowledge 
and  ability  and  need  merely  learn  a  few  points, 
of  military  technique,  than  a  raw  peasant  lad 
of  twenty  who  can  scarcely  read  or  write.  For 
does  he  not,  in  turn,  acknowledge  without  dis- 
pute the  authority  of  a  lieutenant  of  nineteen? 
The  official  superior  amounts  to  more,  has  more 
power,  knows  more  than  his  official  inferior.  To 
Sergeant  Stuff  that  is  as  self-evident  as  that  he 
breathes." 

"And  you  seem  to  be  of  the  opinion  that  he  is 
wrong?"  Dorndorf,  unable  to  control  himself,  in- 
terrupted with  bitter  anger,  "I'd  like  to  see  any 
army  in  the  world  in  which  every  rookie  is  per- 
mitted to  develop  his  own  personality." 

The  mild  and  always  slightly  astonished  eyes 
of  the  ensign  showed  a  gleam  as  of  blue  steel. 
He  looked  hard  at  Dorndorf  and  said  with  that 
cool  and  unshakable  self-control  which  is  a  fruit 
of  all  official  military  training:  "On  the  con- 
trary. Personally,  Stuff's  way  of  thinking  has 
passed  into  my  very  blood.  That  is,  of  course, 
on  account  of  the  education  which  I — let  me  not 
call  it  enjoyed — but  received.  But  I  understand 
well  that  Gadsky  is  in  the  happy  position  of  hav- 

39 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

ing  been  able  to  cultivate  other  modes  of  feel- 
ing." He  pushed  back  his  cuff  and  held  out  his 
right  hand  toward  Mathilde.  "Do  you  see  those 
three  white  spots  above  the  wrist-bone?  Those 
scars  date  from  my  eleventh  year,  from  the  day 
of  my  entrance  into  the  military  training  school. 
At  the  command  of  my  monitor — a  lad  of  four- 
teen— I  had  to  hold  out  my  arm  while  he 
dropped  burning  sealing-wax  on  it." 

"But  why,  why?"  Mathilde  was  outraged. 
"That's  medieval.  .  .  .  !" 

"You  will  find  hazing  scandals  in  the  official 
military  training  schools  of  all  countries.  They 
grow  out  of  the  spirit  that  despises  both  wretch- 
edness and  compassion ;  above  all  they  teach  even 
the  most  stupid  the  meaning  of  utter  subordina- 
tion. And  any  one  who  has  lived  so  since  his 
early  youth  can  scarcely  even  appreciate  Gad- 
sky's  self-conscious  indignation.  You  can  under- 
stand that,  dear  lady." 

Mathilde  covered  her  face  with  her  hands. 
"It's  terrible,"  she  moaned.  "And  do  the  parents 
know  it?" 

Weiler  who  had  listened  with  a  pale  face  sud- 
denly drew  himself  up.  "You  musn't  think  those 
educational  methods  are  confined  to  military 
schools.  Everywhere  in  our  modern  world  hard- 
ness and  a  repression  of  the  gentler  feelings  are 
cultivated.  Boys  are  ashamed  to  show  feeling. 
They  are  ashamed  to  love  poetry,  to  be  moved  by 
noble  things.  The  age  trains  them  to  be  spiritual 
ruffians  and  to  call  the  gentle  souls  'sissies.'  The 
40 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

spirit  of  militarism  has  crept  into  all  life  and 
over  the  whole  world." 

Ensign  von  Kriilow  had  listened  with  rapt  at- 
tention. He  said  dreamily,  "It's  a  strange  feel- 
ing for  me  who  grew  up  in  the  tradition  of  'red- 
blooded'  brutality  to  hear  such  heresies  openly 
uttered.  There  was  a  legend  in  my  childhood  of 
the  little  son  of  a  jailer  who,  when  he  went  out 
into  the  world,  was  astonished  that  there  were 
people  who  wore  no  chains.  I  remind  myself  of 
that  boy." 

He  fell  silent,  and  a  mild  and  yearning  expres- 
sion gave  his  face  a  touch  of  strangeness.  The 
others  lowered  their  eyes  too,  as  though  their 
homesickness  for  their  far  childhood  had  been 
awakened.  Even  from  Dorndorf's  forehead  the 
dark  anger  vanished  for  a  few  minutes.  Mathilde 
arose  and  filled  the  cups.  She  pushed  the  cake 
tray  nearer  to  Dorndorf  and  then  carried  a  cup 
of  tea  to  Gadsky  at  the  piano. 

He  saw  her  standing  by  him ;  he  felt  the  still- 
ness that  filled  the  room  pass  into  his  soul  and 
looked  up  at  her  tenderly.  The  current  that 
passed  to  him  from  her  slender,  flexible  body 
made  him  tremble.  Mathilde  felt  a  slight  and 
exqujsite  shiver  too.  She  was  leaning  lightly  on 
his  shoulder.  Then,  with  a  quick  determination, 
she  bent  over  him :  "Can't  you  come  to-morrow 
evening?"  He  let  the  piano  thunder  and 
answered  aloud:  "If  Sergeant  Stuff  has  no  ob- 
jection." 

"I'll  wait  with  the  car  from  half  past  six  to 


THE  JUDGMENT  OP  PEACE 

seven,  as  usual,"  she  breathed.  She  touched  his 
ear  delicately  and  then  went  back  to  the  table. 

Kriilow  had  awakened  again.  He  saw  the 
gleam  of  blessedness  in  her  eyes  and  flushed. 
Since  the  death  of  his  mother,  she  was  the  first 
woman  to  whom  he  felt  himself  attracted  in  a 
pure  and  spiritual  fashion.  His  bitter,  intimi- 
dated heart  reached  out  after  her.  He  smiled  as 
he  compared  her  in  his  mind  with  the  thin  and 
frosty  women  among  his  kin. 

Mathilde  had  a  careworn  look.  "I'm  in  con- 
stant fear,  Mr.  von  Kriilow,"  she  said  softly, 
"that  Gadsky  will  lose  his  temper  and  commit 
some  terrible  folly.  Does  he  have  to  endure 
whatever  the  sergeant  chooses  to  inflict  ?  Is  there 
no  recourse  .  .  .  ?" 

"Naturally,  everything  has  its  limits,"  Krti- 
)ow  stammered  in  embarrassment.  "Even  the 
omnipotence  of  a  superior  officer  is  conditioned 
on  certain  rules.  If,  for  instance,  a  misuse  of  his 
authority  could  be  clearly  proven  .  .  .  But  even 
in  that  case  .  .  .  The  worst  that  could  happen 
to  Stuff  would  be  several  days'  confinement  to 
his  rooms.  He'd  have  wine  and  a  game  of  cards 
and  take  no  great  harm.  Gadsky,  on  the  con- 
trary, would  sooner  or  later,  I'm  afraid  ..." 

Bending  far  over  Dorndorf  had  listened  with 
curiosity.  Now  he  beamed  and  completed  the 
sentence  triumphantly:  " — make  the  acquaint- 
ance of  a  court  martial." 

"Even  if  it  didn't  come  to  that  .  .  ."  Kriilow 
wanted  to  continue,  but  he  interrupted  himself 
42 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

as  Weiler,  who  had  been  walking  up  and  down 
excitedly,  suddenly  remained  standing  and 
showed  the  impulse  to  speak. 

"And  that's  the  sum  of  their  wisdom —  a  court 
martial!"  He  spoke  with  extreme  bitterness. 
"Our  captain  is  perfectly  happy  when  he  can 
threaten  us  with  that  particular  bogey.  Have 
you  ever  thoroughly  reflected," — he  turned  to 
Dorndorf — "what  that  really  means — a  court 
martial?  Don't  you  feel  at  all  that  the  whole 
enormous  one-sidedness,  the  blind  violence  of 
this  great  age  of  yours  stares  at  us  from  that 
word?  Isn't  it  the  vilest  injustice  to  judge  men, 
to  imprison  them,  even  to  shoot  them,  simply 
because  they  don't  happen  to  possess  one  small 
group  of  characteristics  and  faculties?  I'd  like 
to  see  how  it  would  fare  with  Stuff  or  even 
with  our  captain  if,  in  times  of  peace,  an  all- 
absorbing  organization — such  as  every  con- 
script army  is — demanded  of  all  able-bodied  men 
certain  definite  mental  qualifications — the  abil- 
ity, say,  of  mastering  the  differential  calculus! 
Why  should  professional  soldiers  alone  have  the 
privilege  now  of  making  one  aptitude  do  for  the 
whole  of  life,  when  all  other  men  are  threatened 
with  a  court  martial  if  they  are  not  skillful  at 
learning  a  ruffian's  trade?  Could  there  be  any- 
thing more  senseless  than  this  attempt  to  reduce 
all  men  to  a  common  denominator?  It  is  pre- 
cisely as  though  we  were  to  demand  of  sheep  and 
oxen  and  all  the  domestic  animals  that  they  are 
to  grow  claws  for  the  duration  of  the  war  and 

43 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

hurl  themselves  at  the  enemy  like  tigers!  Are 
there  not  also  numberless  domestic  human 
beings,  who  are  useful  and  industrious  but  who 
have  no  claws?  Take  our  poor  comrade  Frobel, 
for  instance.  He's  an  admirable  common-school 
teacher,  just  because  he  is  gentle  and  patient. 
And  now,  suddenly,  he  is  to  .  .  ." 

"That  would  be  simple!"  Dorndorf  roared. 
"What  you  want  is  a  paradise  for  slackers. 
Every  one  would  say  he  was  the  domestic  kind. 
That  system  would  soon  finish  us.  Our  enemies 
could  ruin  and  crush  us." 

Weiler  suddenly  grew  very  calm.  "Ruin  us, 
you  say.  Then  let  me  ask  of  you  one  favor: 
Imagine  this  war  to  have  taken  place  at  some 
other  period  in  history — say  toward  the  end  of 
the  eighteenth  century.  And  now  blot  out  from 
human  civilization  all  the  inventions,  discover- 
ies, creative  works  in  music  and  literature,  the 
gains  of  the  medical,  philosophical  and  other 
sciences,  in  short,  all  the  intellectual  products  of 
the  men  who,  at  that  point  of  time,  were  between 
the  ages  of  twenty  and  forty!  That  will  give 
you  some  notion  what  a  catastrophe  like  this 
means  in  regard  to  the  future  of  mankind.  You 
will  probably  reply  that  it  is  not  the  most  gifted 
who  will  necessarily  be  killed.  To  be  sure,  the 
grenades  will  not  select  the  finest  brains  to 
smash.  But  neither  will  they  spare  them.  And 
I'm  not  inclined  to  believe  that  the  most  famous 
thinkers,  artists  and  discoverers  will  make  the 
best  bayonet  fighters." 
44 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

Dorndorf  shook  his  head  irritatedly.  "In  a 
word,  you'd  be  in  favor  of  having  some  people 
go  out  there  to  get  their  heads  smashed  for  the 
others  who  can,  in  the  meantime,  sit  in  arm 
chairs  at  home  and  follow  out  their  beautiful 
thoughts." 

"And  how  is  it  now,  if  you  please?"  Weiler 
was  thoroughly  aroused.  "Wouldn't  Gadsky  be 
permitted  to  stay  at  home  too  if  his  fingers  had 
been  trained  to  drill  gun  bores  instead  of  to  play 
the  piano?  Aren't  thousands  of  men — engineers, 
chemists,  miners — carefully  guarded  from  all 
danger  because  they  can  accomplish  more  for 
the  war  where  they  are?  That  is  precisely  the 
fearful  short-sightedness,  that  everything  is  ex- 
cepted  which  immediately  serves  the  war,  and 
that  it  is  forgotten  that  in  the  total  power  of  a 
people  the  achievements  of  all  its  members  are 
contained.  Or  do  you  believe  that  the  power  of 
a  nation  can  be  heightened  by  increasing  the 
number  of  guns  at  the  expense  of  the  intellectual 
values?  A  narrow-chested  weakling  who  brews 
some  new  explosive  is  more  valuable  to-day  than 
regiments  of  giants.  Victories  are  won  in  the 
chart-room,  in  the  laboratory,  in  the  munition 
works.  Nine-tenths  of  the  actual  fighters  die 
without  ever  having  seen  the  enemy  who  kills 
them.  But  people  still  fly  flags  and  boast  might- 
ily, as  though  success  were  still  the  result  of 
greater  valor  and  not  of  an  impersonal  organi- 
zation." 

"Never  mind  that,"  Dorndorf  replied  sul- 

45 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

lenly.  "A  brave  man  can  still  find  plenty  of  op- 
portunity. And  if  we  construct  pieces  of  artil- 
lery that  no  one  can  imitate,  it  speaks  for  our 
greater  capability.  We  shall  win  because  we  are 
superior  to  the  enemy  in  every  respect." 

"Do  you  think  so?"  Weiler  interrupted  him. 
"Do  you  think  it  is  our  minds  against  the  minds 
of  the  enemy?  Not  at  all!  Intellectual  achieve- 
ments are  international.  We  use  enemy  inven- 
tions against  him ;  he  uses  ours  against  us." 

"Nonsense,"  Dorndorf  protested  in  indigna- 
tion. "We  may  use  his  inventions.  Very  well. 
We  use  them  better.  It  shows  that  we  are  more 
skillful,  industrious  and  brave." 

"Suppose  we  leave  the  whole  question  of  valor 
out,"  Weiler  jeered.  "Since  in  this  war  it  is 
the  aim  of  every  general  on  both  sides  to  get  the 
enemy  under  fire  at  the  greatest  possible  dis- 
tance, so  that  he  can't  shoot  back,  to  surround 
him  and  attack  him,  if  possible,  in  the  rear,  and 
since  all  these  means  to  victory  depend  on  the 
invention  of  guns  and  the  ability  of  generals, 
there  is  confoundedly  little  room  left  for  volun- 
tary personal  valor.  Power  and  courage  scarcely 
belong  to  war  any  longer.  The  strongest  man  is 
no  better  than  a  paralytic  if  he  would  compete 
with  one  of  the  gigantic  cranes  in  the  Hamburg 
harbor;  a  baby,  by  pressing  a  button,  can  lift  a 
thousand  times  as  much.  That  was  all  very  fine 
and  true  so  long  as  the  stronger  armx  the  longer 
spear,  the  harder  head  decided  a  combat.  To-day 
the  same  qualities  are  successful  in  war  which 
46 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

decide  competition  in  what  we  call  peace.  Who- 
ever has  invented  the  greater  number  of  buttons 
to  press  can  also  manufacture  the  greater  num- 
ber of  grenades.  Really  one  could  leave  the 
whole  skull-cracking  process  out  altogether.  The 
larger  industry  would  still  gain  the  upper  hand ; 
the  more  cunning  commercial  method  prevail 
over  the  simpler  one.  It  is  only  because  people 
cling  to  tradition  and  because  it  is  to  the  pro- 
fessional advantage  of  some  to  cling  to  it,  that 
we  still  make  the  number  of  dead  men  the  cri- 
terion of  power.  Naked  competition,  in  all  its 
unadorned  sobriety,  without  any  bloodshed, 
would  probably  seem  too  cruel  to  these  people." 

Gadsky  laughed  aloud.  Mathilde  had  arisen 
and  threatened  Weiler  playfully.  She  went 
toward  the  door.  "Here  it's  six  o'clock.  I  must 
get  ready  to  go  to  the  theater  and  the  whole 
afternoon  has  passed  without  our  having  been 
happy  or  comfortable.  But  watch  out!  Next 
time  I'll  have  a  Bed  Cross  bank  on  the  table  and 
whoever  argues  will  be  fined." 

Full  of  remorse  Weiler  took  her  hand  and 
touched  it  with  his  lips. 

Dorndorf  followed  his  niece  with  his  eyes  and 
waited  until  the  door  was  shut  behind  her.  Then 
he  turned  to  Weiler  with  a  challenging  air. 

"I'm  not  up  to  your  profound  explanations," 
he  began  with  sarcastic  humility.  "May  I,  how- 
ever, offer  a  very  simple  comparison,  even  if  it's 
not  so  witty  as  your  proposal  to  make  tigers  of 
sheep  and  oxen?  So  far  as  I  was  able  to  follow 

47 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

your  train  of  thought  you  were  trying,  by  means 
of  this  comparison,  to  prove  that  it  isn't  right 
to  tear  peace-loving  people  from  their  civil  pur- 
suits and  send  them  to  war.  But  now  I  want  you 
to  tell  me  whether  a  man  who  is  overtaken  by  an 
inundation  and  is  fighting  with  the  water  must 
not  try,  above  all  things,  to  get  firm  ground  un- 
der his  feet  again?  I  don't  believe  that  he'll  give 
a  damn  just  then  about  his  other  talents,  but 
gather  all  his  possible  energy  into  his  arms  and 
legs.  Even  Caruso,  in  that  situation,  would 
hardly  sing  arias  and — drown.  He'll  forget  all 
about  his  precious  larynx  and  hold  himself  above 
water  as  long  as  he  can.  Or  do  you  think 
he  ..." 

Impatiently  Weiler  interrupted  him.  "I  think 
exactly  as  you  do.  We  agree  perfectly.  You  said 
yourself  that  the  man,  in  spite  of  his  extremity, 
will  use  only  his  arms  and  legs.  He  won't  even 
attempt  to  swim  with  his  larynx.  If  his  arm 
and  legs  aren't  strong  enough,  he  has  to  drown. 
And  that's  all  I  ask.  But  the  state  pursues  the 
contrary  policy.  It  says :  This  is  no  time  to  sing 
or  think  or  poetize  or  paint  or  do  a  hundred 
other  things.  Therefore  the  larynx — as  well  as 
all  the  other  organs  and  functions  of  peace — 
must  now  be  transformed  into  arms  and  legs. 
And  if — to  grant  your  comparison — the  larynx 
doesn't  succeed  in  helping  the  man  to  swim,  the 
court  martial  must  teach  it  to  do  so." 

"That's  quibbling,  mere  quibbling!  Of  course 
48 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

you  can  take  anything  and  twist  and  turn  it 
till.  .  .  ."  Dorndorf  was  gasping. 

Mathilde  reentered  now,  dressed  for  the 
street.  She  stepped  between  the  two  men.  "Are 
you  fighting  again?"  She  pushed  her  uncle 
gently  aside  and  turned  to  Weiler:  "You  bad 
man!" 

Dorndorf  gasped  for  air.  He  stood  on  tiptoe 
and  shouted  across  Mathilde's  shoulder:  "No 
one  can  accuse  me  of  undervaluing  literature  and 
art.  And  it's  easy  enough  to  prove  that  a  man 
can't  swim  with  his  larynx."  Then  he  turned  to 
Gadsky  and  added  venomously:  "A  man  has 
gone  pretty  far  when  he  finds  such  cheap  jokes 
entertaining." 

Mathilde  laid  her  hand  on  the  old  man's  shoul- 
der. "Uncle,  we  shall  have  to  go  now."  But  he 
escaped  her  and  exclaimed  with  unction :  "If  we 
had  the  enemy  in  the  fatherland  destroying  and 
trampling  down  everything  and  using  pianos  as 
fuel,  Mr.  Gadsky  wouldn't  have  much  chance  of 
practicing  his  art !  And  I  believe  there  would  be 
damned  few  people  in  that  case  who  would  take 
pleasure  in  his  playing.  When  the  existence  of 
a  nation  is  at  stake,  even  the  finest  music  is  a 
useless  toy.  One  must,  after  all,  distinguish  be- 
tween the  things  that  count  more  and  those  that 
count  less.  .  .  ." 

"Existence?"  Weiler  interrupted  him  again. 
"You  can't  very  easily  blow  away  a  nation  of 
seventy  million  souls  .  .  ." 

Gadsky  had  closed  the  piano.  He  stood  beside 

49 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

Krulow  and  listened  with  amusement  to  the  de- 
bate. Now  he  suddenly  grew  grave,  pushed 
Weiler  aside  and  turned  calmly  but  incisively 
toward  Dorndorf .  "Listen,  my  dear  man !  I  wish 
you  would  leave  my  art  out  of  the  argument. 
You  say  it  is,  after  all,  a  mere  game !  lam  not 
sure  but  what  the  emptier  game  isn't  all  this 
shooting,  this  waste  of  billions  that  lays  waste 
whole  countries  and  brings  whole  nations  to  the 
point  of  beggary !  It,  in  fact,  is  a  game — the  game 
of  a  couple  of  thousand  of  undeveloped  diplo- 
matic brains  all  over  Europe  who  would  rather 
smash  the  world  to  bits  than  reeducate  their 
own  way  of  thinking.  With  my  art  I  can  turn 
gross  and  uncouth  oafs  to  gentleness  and  love. 
With  my  art  I  can  change  hate  into  kindness  and 
transform  the  clenched  fist  into  the  outstretched 
hand.  And  this  holy  earnestness  that  impresses 
you  so— what  does  it  do?  It  changes  strong  men 
into  stinking  carrion;  it  turns  kind  and  good 
men  into  cruel  beasts — everywhere  and  always. 
Don't  meddle  with  my  art!  You'll  be  yearning 
for  it  in  dust  and  ashes  some  day,  if  this  noble 
earnestness  of  yours  prevails  for  another  year 
or  two.  Wait! — Shan't  we  go?" 

He  turned  his  back  on  Dorndorf.  But  his 
face  brightened  again  as  his  eyes  met  Mathilde's. 
She  healed  his  soul  with  the  completeness  of  her 
silent  assent.  She  slipped  past  the  others  and 
with  a  characteristic  nod  of  her  head  which  he 
loved,  she  said :  "I  must  go,  even  if  you  gentle- 
50 


THE  JUDGMENT  OP  PEACE 

men  are  not  quite  through.  We  begin  at  seven 
and  it's  almost  half  past  six." 

Ensign  von  Krtilow  had  already  buckled  on 
his  sword  and  slipped  into  his  overcoat.  He  was 
waiting  in  the  anteroom.  His  quiet,  thoughtful 
face  was  suffused  with  a  radiance  of  content. 
He  went  with  Mathilde  and  Gadsky  and  said  on 
the  stairs,  drawing  his  breath  deeply:  "It  does 
me  good  to  hear  Dorndorf  obliterated !  All  that 
I've  had  to  choke  down  for  fifteen  long  years 
.  .  ."  He  fell  silent,  for  Dorndorf  and  Weiler  ap- 
peared on  the  landing,  and  they  went  downstairs 
without  further  speech.  Outside  Mathilde  sur- 
reptitiously drew  twTo  tickets  from  her  bag  and 
turned  to  Krulow:  "Couldn't  the  leave  possibly 
be  extended  until  eleven?  If  you  were  to  say  a 
word  to  his  majesty,  the  sergeant?" 

"Nonsense!"  Gadsky  thundered.  "It's  all  ar- 
ranged for  the  other  two  gentlemen  to  go.  Don't 
be  childish,  my  dear." 

"Unfortunately  your  overestimate  my  influ- 
ence," Krulow  stammered. 

"Do  have  a  good  time!"  Gadsky  said  ener- 
getically and  took  Mathilde's  hand. 

She  tried  to  hold  him  back.  "I'm  in  such  good 
form  to-day,"  she  begged.  "The  second  act  is  at 
half  past  nine.  .  .  ." 

But  Gadsky  had  already  torn  himself  away, 
waved  his  good-night  greeting  and,  drawing 
Weiler  with  him,  hastened  away.  Mathilde  fol- 
lowed him  with  her  eyes  until  he  had  disap- 
peared around  the  nearest  corner.  "Perhaps  he's 

51 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

glad  to  have  the  excuse,"  she  said  with  a  mild 
and  tired  little  smile  to  Krtilow,  who  looked  at 
her  as  guiltily  as  though  it  were  his  fault. 

Weiler  permitted  himself  to  be  drawn  along 
through  the  streets.  His  head  was  bowed  and  he 
answered  Gadsky's  remarks  distractedly.  It  was 
always  so  with  him.  When  his  excitement  disap- 
peared, remorse  overcame  him.  When,  in  the 
course  of  a  debate,  a  profound  conviction  spoke 
from  him,  he  could  be  pitiless  and  sharp.  So  soon 
as  he  was  no  longer  face  to  face  with  his  op- 
ponent, he  grew  gentle  and  pangs  of  conscience 
tormented  him.  "I  shouldn't  have  spoken  so 
frankly  on  the  point  of  parental  vanity,"  he  said 
in  a  depressed  way  after  a  while,  and  looked 
anxiously  up  at  Gadsky.  "But  Dorndorf,"  he 
continued,  "stings  me  with  his  empty  repetition 
of  stereotyped  commonplaces  so  that  I  lose  all 
control  over  myself."  But  with  a  new  flame  of 
passionate  conviction  he  added:  "But  it's  true! 
I  swear  to  you  it's  true!  You  heard  Mr.  von 
Kriilow  confirm  all  I  said.  Only  I  shouldn't  have 
told  the  old  gentleman  all  that  to  his  face  .  .  ." 

Gadsky  wasn't  at  all  in  the  mood  to  be  mild  or 
forgiving.  The  farewell  had  stirred  up  anew  his 
hatred  of  Stuff,  and  also  the  feeling  that  there 
were  six  days  of  torment  ahead  of  him  gnawed 
at  him  again.  It  was  stupid,  it  was  mad  of  him, 
to  creep  back  every  Sunday  into  that  atmosphere 
of  culture  and  of  exquisiteness  like  a  criminal 
who  is  drawn  back  to  the  scene  of  his  crime  until 
he  is  caught.  The  venom  had  gathered  in  his 
52 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

heart  and  he  let  his  wretchedness  rattle  down  on 
Weiler.  "Don't  talk  such  rot!  Not  say  things 
to  him  face  to  face?  You  intend  to  hold  in  what 
you  think  on  this  fellow's  account?  You  said  too 
little.  Watch  him  how  he  beams  and  boasts !  Oh, 
if  only  he  were  young  enough  to  go  to  the  front ! 
Easily  said!  You  hear  it  from  them  all !  They're 
all  aching  to  go!  But  one  should  tell  them  the 
straight  truth  for  once — these  shaky  professors 
and  councilors  and  editors!  Like  bathing  chil- 
dren they  patter  about  in  our  blood !  Isn't  it  a 
comfortable  situation — to  sit  down  softly  cush- 
ioned and  then  to  assign  to  the  young  the  task 
of  dying  as  though  it  were  a  lesson  in  Cicero? 
Have  you  ever  watched  one  of  these  palsied  old 
fellows  when  he  sees  young,  strong  men  march 
past  him  out  to  battle?  He  barely  refrains  from 
calling  out  to  us:  'Eh!  We're  sixty  and  our 
arteries  are  hardening  and  the  gout  is  in  our 
bones  and  we'll  survive  you  for  all  that!  Eh! 
Eh!'  They  grin  at  us  as  full  of  malice  as 
monkeys  in  a  cage,  and  screech  their  patriotic 
phrases  and  wave  their  arms  like  an  old  farmer 
driving  his  poultry  across  the  farmyard.  Why 
shouldn't  you  speak  out?  You  said  far  too  little, 
not  too  much !" 

Weiler  did  not  answer.  Gadsky's  rage  intimi- 
dated him.  This  scene  was  repeated  every  Sun- 
day on  their  way  back.  For  it  was  not  until  the 
barracks  stretched  out  its  fangs  toward  him  and 
the  whole  bitterness  of  his  situation  came  over 
him,  that  Gadsky  would  return  to  the  debates  at 

53 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

Miss  von  Moellnitz'  which  he  had  treated  as  a 
mere  spectator  before.  And  Weiler,  the  springs 
of  whose  enthusiasm  and  wrath  were  run  down, 
had  to  suffer  his  friend's  belated  explosions. 

"You  are  a  queer  fellow,"  Gadsky  said  after 
a  brief  pause.  "If  ever  in  the  heat  of  debate  a 
frank  word  escapes  you,  you  let  it  eat  into  your 
soul  later.  You  imagine,  I  suppose,  that  Dorn- 
dorf  is  just  as  quiveringly  sensitive  as  you  are? 
You  can't  imagine  that  there  are  people  whose 
inner  lives  are  far  more  robust.  You  strike  me 
like  a  sort  of  inverted  Stuff.  That  vulgar  fellow 
believes  it's  quite  as  easy  for  any  man  to  cringe 
as  it  is  for  him.  And  you,  on  the  contrary,  at- 
tribute your  own  fineness  of  feeling  to  every 
member  of  the  species.  That  accounts  for  your 
morbid  love  of  the  mob.  You  ought  to  know 
these  people  from  actual  acquaintance  as  I  do. 
You'd  soon  lose  all  desire  to  defend  them." 

"They  need  no  defense,"  Weiler  said  stub- 
bornly. "If  I  had  grown  up  under  such  unfavor- 
able conditions  as  those  poor  people,  if  I  had 
seen  nothing  about  me  but  hardness  and  need 
and  discrimination,  and  had  had  no  sight  of  any 
of  the  beautiful  things  in  life  except  across  a 
tall  iron  fence,  I  wouldn't  be  different  by  a  hair's 
breadth." 

Gadsky  laughed  a  brief,  jeering  laugh  but 
made  no  answer.  He  considered  that  Weiler 
made  a  fool  of  himself  over  the  proletariat.  He 
himself,  from  his  childhood  on,  had  nourished  a 
bitter  dislike  of  the  workers.  In  the  little  indus- 
54 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

trial  village  where  he  had  grown  up  he  had  been 
better  clad  than  the  other  children.  And  so  he, 
the  son  of  the  government  official,  had  been  at- 
tacked and  beaten  and  pushed  into  mud  puddles 
in  his  Sunday  best.  And  the  nattering  reception 
which  good  society  had  given  him  immediately 
after  his  first  success  had  but  served  to  deepen 
that  early  dislike.  This  was  the  one  question  in 
regard  to  which  he  and  Weiler  could  find  no 
common  ground.  He  shrugged  his  shoulders 
with  a  touch  of  contempt  and  hurried  on  until, 
short  of  breath,  he  stopped  in  the  middle  of  the 
street.  "Where  are  we  rushing  to  anyhow?"  he 
asked  moodily. 

"I  thought  we  were  going  to  dine  somewhere," 
Weiler  stammered  in  his  astonishment.  Gadsky 
looked  about  and  pointed  to  a  large,  cheap 
restaurant  that  boldly  threw  its  cone  of  light 
across  the  street.  "That's  where  we  belong,"  he 
said.  "That's  the  proper  place  for  common  sol- 
diers— this  hash-mill!"  He  laughed  at  the  look 
of  fright  in  Weiler's  eyes.  For  Weiler  had  an 
unconquerable  aversion  from  crowds  and  their 
noise.  He  drew  him  along  and  patted  his  shoul- 
der. "You  must  come  in  there.  It  will  give  you 
a  chance  to  rejoice  in  your  fellowmen.  You'll 
see — they'll  make  much  of  us.  Aren't  we  going 
to  permit  ourselves  to  be  massacred  in  order  that 
they  may  swill  their  beer  in  peace?" 

The  tables  were  all  taken.  About  the  great 
chandeliers  floated  clouds  of  cigar  smoke  and  of 
steam.  They  heard  a  sound  of  speech  like  the 

55 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

whirring  and  grinding  of  a  huge  machine. 
Weiler  turned  back  in  the  middle  and  ran 
toward  the  door.  He  was  glad  there  was  no 
vacant  table.  But  Gadsky  took  him  by  the  arm 
and  led  him  to  a  big  table  surrounded  by  noisy 
Philistines  who  made  room  for  them.  Gadsky 
declared  with  exaggerated  courtesy  that  he  and 
his  friend  would  be  glad  to  avail  themselves  of 
the  friendly  invitation  and  gave  Weiler  a  sar- 
castic look  as  two  boisterous  giants  drew  the  lat- 
ter down  on  the  seat  beside  them.  It  gave  him 
a  sinister  pleasure  to  observe  the  desperate  de- 
fenselessness  of  his  friend.  He  wanted  to  use 
this  opportunity  to  heal  him  thoroughly  of  his 
predilection  for  the  mob.  He  invented  stories  in 
order  to  fasten  the  attention  of  these  men  ruth- 
lessly upon  Weiler. 

"I  haven't  myself  been  at  the  front  yet,"  he 
said  modestly,  "but  my  friend  here,  although  he 
looks  so  pale  and  fragile,  has  about  nine  Eng- 
lishmen to  his  credit.  He  won't  have  to  wait 
much  longer  for  his  iron  cross." 

"That's  right,"  roared  the  fat  man  next  to 
Weiler  and  held  out  a  great,  paw  to  him.  "Don't 
spare  them  fellows,  whatever  you  do!  A  pack 
o'  thieves !" 

Gadsky  turned  to  the  man  with  an  apparently 
deep  sympathy  and  respect. 

"I  suppose  you  know  the  English  thoroughly? 
May  I  ask  whether  you've  ever  lived  among 
them?" 

The  fat  man  opened  his  mouth  in  amazement. 
56 


THE  JUDGMENT  OP  PEACE 

"Why?"  he  asked  suspiciously.  But  he  found  his 
self-confidence  again  at  once.  "I?  Lived  among 
'em?"  He  shook  his  fist  protestingly.  "Aw,  what 
do  you  take  me  for?  I  never  wanted  to  have 
nothin'  to  do  with  them  scoundrels." 

"I  understand  fully,"  Gadsky  said  very  grave- 
ly. "You  got  your  fill  of  them,  so  to  speak,  at  a 
distance." 

Weiler  suffered  intensely.  With  hot  cheeks  he 
bent  over  his  plate  and  thought  he  would  choke 
with  every  bite  he  had  to  force  down.  The 
cruelty  with  which  Gadsky  carried  off  his  prac- 
tical joke  on  these  people  wounded  him  more 
deeply  than  the  hurt  done  to  himself.  How  could 
he  so  misuse  the  credulity  of  these  good-natured 
donkeys? 

A  man  with  spectacles  who  looked  like  a  court 
assistant  turned  to  Weiler  and  asked:  "When 
do  you  return  to  the  front?"  He  forced  a  cigar 
on  him.  Weiler  was  going  to  blurt  out  the  truth, 
but  Gadsky  interposed :  "In  three  days  and  this 
time  to  Belgium."  He  threw  off  the  information 
triumphantly. 

At  once  the  red,  heated  heads  drew  closer  to- 
gether and  a  flood  of  questions  and  bits  of  advice 
poured  down  over  the  two.  Each  of  the  men  had 
particularly  authentic  information  concerning 
the  atrocities  of  the  Belgian  franc-tireurs  which 
he  believed  with  all  the  honest  force  of  his  igno- 
rance and  consequent  limitation  of  outlook.  The 
fat  man  begged  Weiler  to  trust  no  Belgian  out  of 
his  sight — no,  not  even  the  women.  .  .  . 

57 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

Wetter  could  endure  it  no  longer.  He  threw 
a  coin  on  the  table,  slipped  into  his  overcoat  and 
withdrew  from  further  advice  and  felicitation 
through  flight.  Gadsky  did  his  best  to  make  up 
for  his  friend's  strange  abruptness.  He  let  him- 
self be  shaken  by  the  hand  endlessly,  permitted 
his  pockets  to  be  filled  with  cheap  cigars  and 
laughed  at  their  fierce  encouragement  and  war- 
likeness. 

On  the  street  he  let  all  his  disgust  creep  into 
his  face.  "Now,"  he  turned  to  Weiler,  "now, 
my  dear  fellow,  you  have  had  a  little  taste  of  the 
class  that  is  so  close  to  your  heart.  Won't  you 
now  .  .  ." 

But  Weiler  wouldn't  let  him  finish.  He  was 
like  a  child.  There  was  a  moisture  in  his  eyes. 
But  his  indignation  was  virile.  "You  speak  as 
though  you  were  a  prince's  child  who  had  grown 
up  away  from  the  world.  In  the  first  place,  what 
have  these  dreary  philistines  to  do  with  the 
workers  of  the  world?  And  it  is  them  whom  I 
defend!  But  let  that  go!  I  grant  you  that  the 
people  are  foolish  and  stubbornly  ignorant.  And 
yet  you  ought  to  be  ashamed!  What  do  these 
poor  devils  say?  Exactly  what  the  leader- 
writers  in  the  newspapers  teach  them  to  say. 
Every  sentence  they  uttered  fairly  reeked  of 
printer's  ink.  Do  you  suppose  English  philis- 
tines in  a  London  inn  have  a  finer  insight  into 
the  German  character?  If  you  want  to  vent  your 
rage  on  any  one,  vent  it  on  the  newspaper  scoun- 
drels in  all  countries  who  befog  their  particular 
58 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

mob  with  flattery  until  national  vanity  and  bel- 
ligerency is  everywhere — everywhere — like  a 
ravening  beast !  Those  poor  devils  in  there  would 
also  and  far  rather,  I  assure  you,  have  been 
great  artists  traveling  through  the  world  and 
forming  their  independent  opinion  of  men  and 
things.  Your  lofty  superiority  is  really  a  very 
inexpensive  feeling — for  you !" 

He  stopped  rather  abruptly  and  turned  in  the 
direction  of  the  barracks.  Gadsky  stared  at  him 
in  astonishment.  "You're  incorrigible,"  he  said, 
but  his  voice  had  lost  its  assurance.  "You  say — 
poor  devils !  Ah,  these  poor  devils  will  be  sitting 
at  that  same  table  and  brag  and  feel  themselves 
superior  to  others  at  the  expense  of  victories 
which  they  have  helped  to  celebrate  when  you 
and  I  will  be  rotting  in  some  foreign  soil." 

Weiler  made  no  answer.  He  walked  as  quickly 
as  he  could  through  narrow  side-streets  to  reach 
the  great  square.  He  found  it  hard  to  react,  to 
liberate  himself  from  the  memory  of  the  talk  in 
the  inn.  He  thought  of  the  people  behind  the 
front  in  all  the  world  and  their  talk — their  pom- 
pous, ruthless  talk  of  hate  and  punishment  and 
self-glorification.  It  seemed  to  him  to  desecrate 
the  unspeakable  suffering  that  filled  all  lands. 
Didn't  these  stay-at-homes  know  that  on  every 
field  on  every  day  and  every  night  boys  who 
were  on  the  threshold  of  life,  which  should  have 
been  full  and  sweet  to  them,  were  laying  down 
their  heads  upon  the  naked  earth  to  die?  Did 
they  not  know  that  fathers  of  families,  too,  were 

59- 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

Weeding  from  fatal  wounds  and  agonizing  with 
their  last  breath  over  those  they  were  leaving  to 
the  harshness  of  the  riven  world?  How  could 
they  forget  that  whole  lands  were  dying  and  sit 
at  home  and  talk  of  empty  words  concerning 
"justice"  and  "vengeance"  and,  of  all  things, 
"glory!" 

He  had  never  been  an  enthusiast  for  the  war. 
In  psychical  self-defense  he  had,  with  enormous 
difficulty,  made  out  some  sort  of  a  case.  He  had 
tried  to  imagine  himself  standing  before  his 
books  on  their  shelves  and  hostile  forces  trying 
to  tear  and  defile  them  .  .  .  But  that  small 
refuge  had  been  taken  from  him  too.  He  saw 
only  those  men  at  the  table  and  other  groups  of 
men  in  the  enemy  countries  precisely  .like  them — 
all  ablaze  with  the  lust  for  violence  and  booty, 
land  and  indemnities,  victory  and  wealth !  And 
it  seemed  to  him  that  everywhere  those  conver- 
sations were  like  the  plots  hatched  in  the  dens 
of  criminals.  And  everything  within  him  re- 
belled against  being  sacrificed  in  a  struggle  in 
which  friend  and  foe  seemed  to  him  alike  driven 
by  an  urge  he  could  not  share  .  .  . 

He  actually  longed  for  his  straw-mattress,  for 
the  dark  room  where  he  could  flee  to  the  walled 
inner  city  of  his  thoughts  and  dreams.  He 
quivered  when  Gadsky  suddenly  touched  his 
sleeve.  "Surely  you  don't  want  to  go  back  yet? 
It's  only  eight  o'clock  and  we  have  a  clear  hour 
and  a  half.  Servant-girls  and  rookies  never  come 
€0 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

back  before  their  time  is  up.  Let's  go  to  see  mov- 
ing pictures.  It  will  distract  our  thoughts." 

Weiler  plead  his  weariness  and  his  distaste  for 
moving  pictures.  Gadsky  urged  him  on.  He  was 
sorry  over  the  scene  in  the  inn  and  he  feared  ta 
have  Weiler  end  the  day  in  so  desperate  a  mood. 
For  in  the  barracks,  as  he  knew  to  his  cost,  an 
inner  bitterness  corroded  the  soul  more  and 
more.  On  one's  cot  one  lay  as  isolated  as  in  a 
prison-cell,  buried  with  one's  heaviness  of  soul, 
cut  off  from  all  human  sympathy.  Finally 
Weiler,  moved  by  the  remorse  in  Gadsky's  eyes, 
permitted  himself  to  be  led  to  the  entrance  of 
the  theater  which  was  flanked  by  glaring  posters, 
roofed  by  the  arc-lamps,  and  seemed  to  him  like 
a  huge  gullet  sucking  in  the  people  on  the 
streets. 

At  first  they  were  both  glad  to  be  in  the  dark- 
ness. After  the  icy  wind  the  warmth  of  the 
crowded  auditorium  was  grateful  to  their  limbs. 
But  presently  the  faint  odor  of  the  well-fed  Sun- 
day crowd  seemed  to  oppress  their  foreheads. 
Gadsky  studied  Weiler's  thin,  rapt  face  with 
compassion.  In  the  pale  light  reflected  back  from 
the  brilliant  screen  it  looked  like  a  death  mask. 
Where  had  he  lived  the  thirty  years  of  his  life 
that  a  contact  with  the  rough  average  of  man- 
kind crushed  and  astonished  him  so?  Did  he 
really  think  the  nation  was  a  compact  mass  of 
poets  and  philosophers?  If  so,  then  like  a 
precious  flower,  hidden  in  his  books,  guarded 
from  the  coarse  world,  he  should  be  kept  and 

61 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

spared  the  horrors  of  reality.  Hurled  into  the 
combat  with  a  gun  and  a  bayonet,  he  was  bound 
to  go  under  like  a  stone  thrown  into  wrater.  No 
force  on  earth  could  turn  these  fragile,  kind 
hands  into  the  paws  of  a  beast  of  prey. 

Weiler  felt  the  sympathy  that  came  to  him 
from  his  friend  and  regretted  his  recent 
violence.  So  they  sought  each  other's  minds 
through  speech  again  in  their  indignation  over 
the  worthlessness  of  the  spectacle.  Gadsky 
cursed  the  shameless  way  in  which  melodies  by 
Chopin  and  Mozart  were  ruined  and  mutilated 
on  poor  instruments  and  in  false  tempi;  Weiler 
was  tormented  by  the  thick  sentimentality  and 
inner  falseness  of  the  story  which  the  pictures 
told.  But  the  public  took  it  in  devoutly.  At  the 
end  came  pictorial  news  of  the  war  and  the 
crashing  of  a  projectile  from  a  forty-two  centi- 
meter gun  was  welcomed  with  an  uproar  of  ap- 
plause. The  two  friends  hurried  out  of  the 
theater. 

"There,"  cried  Gadsky,  "there  you  have  seen 
our  hangmen  face  to  face.  These  people  who  are 
so  moved  when  the  kidnapped  child  says  its  eve- 
ning prayer,  are  jubilant  at  the  sight  of  a  pro- 
jectile that  can  tear  a  dozen  human  creatures 
into  rags.  And  they  are  capable  of  the  two  emo- 
tional responses  within  the  same  fifteen  minutes. 
And  do  you  know  why?  On  account  of  the  tribal 
vanity  that  corrupts  the  whole  world — the  swin- 
ish meaning  that  has  been  given  in  all  countries 
to  the  word  patriotism!  If  it's  their  projectile, 
62 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

an  invention  of  some  one  within  their  tribe,  if 
it's  their  achievement — let  it  kill  and  rend! 
Isn't  that  so?" 

"I  don't  have  to  ask  the  question,"  Weiler 
replied  firmly.  "I  know  it.  But  I  also  know  that 
these  people  and  their  equals  in  all  the  world  are 
capable  of  being  kind  and  just  and  modest  if 
school  and  pulpit,  the  newspaper  and  the  mov- 
ing picture  had  always  taught  love  instead  of 
vanity,  brotherhood  instead  of  patriotism." 

With  a  heavy  sigh  and  a  gesture  of  renuncia- 
tion Gadsky  proceeded  toward  the  tramway.  But 
on  the  way  he  remained  standing  once  more  for 
a  minute  and  said  with  a  calm  and  weary  bitter- 
ness of  spirit :  "My  dear  fellow,  I  envy  you  your 
faith.  And  I  don't  want  to  argue  any  more.  But 
I'd  like  to  explain  to  you  just  why  I  can't  fol- 
low you.  I  don't  care  to  ask  how  these  people 
would  have  been  if  they  had  received  another 
kind  of  psychical  nourishment  from  without.  I 
see  what  they  are  to-day.  And  I  know  with  a 
thorough  knowledge  how  I  have  had  to  lash  and 
goad  my  imperfect  will  and  drive  myself  to  the 
piano.  Achievement  demands  its  price.  And  I 
know  too  how  you,  Arthur  Weiler,  through  long 
years  of  profound  inner  agony  and  self-analysis 
and  intimate  suffering,  rose  from  the  man  to  the 
poet  that  you  are.  And  to-day  I  see  the  two  of 
us  sacrificed  in  order  that  the  vile  mob  may  wal- 
low in  its  self-adoration.  These  poor  herd-ani- 
mals are  neither  rich  nor  wise,  nor  beautiful  nor 
learned.  Well,  they  haven't  the  slightest  desire 

6S 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

to  work  at  their  own  selves  and  their  own  souls 
to  amount  to  anything.  But  they  want,  never- 
theless, to  enjoy  all  the  triumph  of  self -hood 
which  they  have  not  earned.  And  that  is  why 
they  have  been  led  by  statesmen  and  generals 
everywhere  to  plunge  the  world  over  the  abyss. 
They  take  refuge  in  that  collective  vanity  which 
is  called  patriotism — the  universal  slogan:  'My 
country  can  lick  creation !'  And  it  is  nothing  but 
a  refuge  from  their  personal  worthlessness  and 
sloth.  They  set  up  their  fetish  and  then  sud- 
denly they  no  longer  know  weariness  or  doubt. 
They  will  march  thrice  around  the  earth  and  set 
it  on  fire  rather  than  descend  into  their  own  souls 
and  cleanse  and  fortify  them." 

He  walked  on.  His  cigarette  was  trembling  in 
his  fingers  and  he  breathed  quickly  as  if  he  had 
been  running.  When  they  had  reached  the  tram- 
car  station  he  suddenly  stretched  out  his  hand 
toward  Weiler  and  said  cordially:  "Once  in  a 
while  I  need  to  relieve  myself  this  way.  I  won't 
bother  you  for  a  long  time  now." 

Weiler  took  the  proffered  hand  and  for  a 
moment  peace  and  quietness  fell  upon  the  souls 
of  both.  Then  they  jumped  on  the  car  and  each 
retired  to  a  corner  of  the  rear  platform. 

In  the  car  sat  a  robust  gentleman  wearing  a 
broad-brimmed  slouch  hat  that  seemed  a  little 
out  of  keeping  with  his  elegant  fur-coat.  Again 
and  again  he  peered  at  Gadsky  over  the  edge  of 
his  paper.  At  last  he  came  over,  looked  hard  and 
then  overwhelmed  Gadsky  with  enforced  friend- 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

liness.  "Is  it  really  you,  Mr.  Gadsky?  You're 
in  the  army,  too.  Well,  isn't  that  glorious !  How 
do  you  do?" 

It  was  the  conductor  of  the  municipal  orches- 
tra, a  gossip  and  a  mediocre  musician  whom 
Gadsky,  in  better  days,  would  hardly  have  held 
worthy  of  a  clasp  of  his  hand.  But  now  he  arose 
before  him  like  the  symbol  of  a  lost  world  and 
brought  with  him  the  fragrance  of  rehearsals 
and  of  packed  concert-halls  and  the  recollection 
of  a  certain  George  Gadsky  whose  magic  hands 
could  change  the  turbulence  of  an  audience  into, 
a  breathless  silence. 

The  conductor  was  in  his  element.  He  was 
happy  to  have  found  some  one  who  had  heard  no 
musical  gossip  for  months.  He  pretended  com- 
plete astonishment  at  the  other's  ignorance. 
"Haven't  you  really  heard  that?  You  seem  to 
have  been  at  the  other  end  of  the  earth !" 

Gadsky  suffered  the  flood  of  speech  to  be 
poured  over  him.  Only  the  little  word  "mister" 
seemed  to  him  like  a  blow  each  time  that  it  was 
uttered.  For  he  was  bitterly  ashamed  of  the  feel- 
ing of  warmth  and  inner  decency  which  it  gave 
him.  "Don't  say  Mr.  Gadsky  to  me," — he  spoke 
with  irritation  and  arrogant  bitterness — "I  am 
tempted  to  look  around  for  the  person  whom  you 
mean.  I  am  Private  Gadsky  now.  I've  quite 
ceased  being  an  honorable  fellowman  who  de- 
serves the  ordinary  amenities.  A  private  in  the 
infantry  is  not  a  gentleman  but  a  sort  of  school- 
boy. Just  say  'Gadsky'  to  me  with  a  touch  of 

65 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

condescension.  Otherwise  I'll  seem  to  myself  to 
be  sailing  under  false  colors." 

The  conductor  gave  an  embarrassed  smile.  His 
small,  roguish  eyes  studied  the  features  of  the 
man  before  him.  He  was  puzzled.  Was  it  a  jest? 
Or  did  the  man  want  to  be  consoled?  After  some 
hesitation  he  thought  it  best  to  treat  the  matter 
jocularly.  He  laughed  thunderously  and  imme- 
diately embarked  on  another  bit  of  scandal. 

"Attention!"  Weiler  whispered  from  behind 
and  pulled  Gadsky  by  the  coat.  As  the  latter 
turned  around  he  saw  Sergeant  Stuff  with  his 
fearfully  over-dressed  spouse  sit  down  in  the 
car.  Gadsky  jerked  back  his  shoulders,  pulled 
up  his  head  and  rattled  his  heels  together.  The 
cold  sweat  had  gathered  on  his  forehead  when 
the  salute  was  completed  and  he  was  forced  to 
turn  toward  the  conductor  again.  Was  it  pos- 
sible, he  asked  himself,  to  observe  without  a 
secret  smile  this  sudden  petrefaction  and  then 
the  matter-of-fact  return  to  a  normal  human  con- 
dition on  the  part  of  him  who  had  been  Gadsky, 
the  pianist?  In  his  embarrassment  he  looked 
past  the  conductor,  then  bent  down  and  whis- 
pered to  him :  "Do  you  see  there — that  is  a  'gen« 
tleman,'  a  member  of  the  master  class  and  for 
the  time  our  unlimited  ruler — Sergeant  Stuff." 

The  other  nodded  with  the  utmost  lack  of 
interest.  Then  he  chattered  on,  telling  the  story 
he  had  begun  at  the  point  where  he  had  been 
interrupted.  "Well,  you  can  imagine  the  rage 
66 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

of  our  director.    He  sent  for  the  man  at  once 

)) 

Hadn't  he  really  understood?  Did  he  think 
the  sergeant  had  merely  passed  the  car  on  the 
street?  "He's  right  in  the  car?  There — next  to 
that  fat  woman  in  the  scarlet  hat !" 

Again  there  was  merely  that  careless  nod. 
Merely  a  matter  of  politeness.  The  conductor 
actually  thought  the  interruption  a  bit  rude. 
"Our  tenor  isn't  backward  either.  So  he  said  to 

his  Excellency  right  straight  out  to  his  face 

» 

Gadsky  didn't  hear  the  other's  words.  His 
blood  throbbed  in  his  temples.  He  seemed  to  fall 
into  some  unplumbed  moral  abyss.  All  he  could 
see  was  the  conductor's  infinitely  careless  little 
nod  of  assent.  And  he  couldn't  calm  himself.  It 
was  perfectly  natural,  of  course,  that  the  con- 
ductor shouldn't  take  the  slightest  interest  in  a 
mere  sergeant.  Why  should  he  care  even  to 
glance  if  but  for  a  moment  at  the  features  of  a 
thoroughly  indifferent  person?  He  himself  would 
not  have  turned  his  head  a  few  months  ago. 

But  his  reason  failed  him  to-day  .  .  .  The 
sight  of  the  fat,  careless  man  took  his  breath 
away.  His  fingers  grasped  the  brass  bar  beside 
him ;  he  gnashed  his  teeth.  He  struggled  against 
the  temptation  to  cry  out  concerning  the  injustice 
that  he  endured.  And  all  this  flared  up  in  him 
anew  when  he  and  Weiler  left  the  car  and  turned 
into  the  narrow  street  that  led  to  the  barracks. 

"The  sergeant  is  behind  us,"  Weiler  whispered 

67 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

to  him.  "Hold  yourself  up  or  he'll  order  extra 
drill  to-morrow.  He's  capable  of  it." 

Gadsky  moaned.  He  almost  hated  his  friend 
for  walking  in  correct  military  fashion.  He 
wanted  to  act  unconscious,  not  to  do  the  brute 
that  much  honor  .  .  .  Then  he  remembered  his 
engagement  with  Mathilde  for  the  following  eve- 
ning and  immediately  observed  his  own  heels  tap 
the  pavement  more  resonantly  and  his  arms 
swing  more  rhythmically.  He,  a  grown  man,  was 
acting  like  a  mechanical  doll  because  those  ac- 
cursed looks  were  at  his  back,  because  he  knew 
that  stupid  male  scold  was  behind  him  .  .  . 

And  the  conductor? 

He  was  no  older,  no  weaker,  no  less  vigorous 
than  himself.  He  hadn't  honored  the  sergeant  by 
a  glance.  He  walked  the  way  he  pleased  and 
went  home  to  his  own  bed ;  he  was  his  own  mas- 
ter, and  made  his  own  plans  for  the  coming  day. 

The  tyrant  who  ruled  his  fate,  the  disgustful 
polypus  whose  fangs  were  in  his  flesh  day  and 
night  was  as  nothing  to  that  other  man,  less  than 
any  of  the  other  little  events  that  interrupt  a 
conversation  in  public.  The  conductor  hadn't 
even  turned  his  head  to  look — so  infinitely 
secure  was  he  under  the  protection  of  his  release 
from  military  service. 

It  was  wrong!  It  was  unspeakably  mon- 
strous ! 

Breathlessly  he  ran  up  the  stairs.  When  he 
reached  his  cot  he  sat  down  on  it  like  a  man 
68 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

turned  to  stone,  taking  off  neither  his  coat  nor 
his  cap. 

Weiler  undressed  quietly.  He  was  about  to 
lie  down,  but  the  sight  of  his  friend  made  him 
restless.  "Do  undress,  Gadsky.  Stuff  is  going  to 
make  his  rounds." 

But  Gadsky  didn't  move.  What  was  the  mat- 
ter with  him?  It  seemed  to  Weiler  as  though  a 
quiver  shook  his  friend's  back.  Slowly  he  went 
nearer  and  peered  at  him  and  saw  the  distorted 
face  on  which  there  were  tears  of  rage  and  humil- 
iation. 

"For  heaven's  sake,  what  is  wrong  with  you?" 

Gadsky  stared  at  him  with  unseeing  eyes. 
Then  he  shook  his  head  sadly  and  muttered,  with 
a  suppressed  sob  in  his  voice,  as  reverently  as 
though  he  was  uttering  an  incomprehensible 
secret : 

"He  didn't  even  turn  around.  .  .  ." 


69 


II 

MUTINEERS 


n 

MUTINEERS 

empty  wagon  stood  on  the  great  square 
A  with  its  shaft  projecting  perpendicularly 
upward.  It  was  surrounded  by  soldiers  and 
looked  like  the  skeleton  of  an  animal  with  great 
black  ribs.  The  icy  wind  of  March  swept  through 
the  village,  whirled  the  thick  clouds  of  dust 
across  the  frozen  street  and  gnawed  at  a  man's 
fingers  even  if  they  were  deep  in  his  pockets. 
And  yet  the  groups  of  men  did  not  scatter  but 
seemed  to  be  held  together  by  a  secret  expecta- 
tion. 

George  Gadsky  helped  the  stretcher-bearer, 
from  whose  neck  the  sweat  was  pouring,  arrange 
his  papers  and  quietly  watched  his  comrades 
from  behind  a  chart.  Their  slow  hesitation,  the 
stubborn  hostility  with  which  they  watched  each 
other  as  though  each  expected  of  the  other  man 
that  liberating  cry  which  he  himself  choked 
down — this  embarrassed  lingering  on  the 
draughty  square,  although  the  chimneys  all 
around  were  smoking  and  the  lamp-light  shim- 
mered through  the  dim  windows — ah,  all  this 
moved  him  more  deeply  than  the  moaning  of 
the  wounded  had  done  a  little  while  ago. 

He  knew  why  these  poor  devils  didn't  want  to 

73 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

return  to  their  warm  billets.  Seventy-three  mu- 
tilated, whining  human  creatures  had  been  un- 
loaded before  their  eyes  from  the  wagon  on 
which  the  French  peasants  used  to  carry  their 
dung  to  the  fields.  And  in  the  flickering  eyes  of 
the  men  gleamed  all  the  horror  of  it  and  the 
dread  question:  "Is  it  really  irrevocable?  Shall 
I  have  to  drag  my  poor  body  thither  where  it  is 
trodden  under  or  torn  into  quivering  frag- 
ments?" 

For  a  moment  Gadsky  felt  dizzy,  as  though  he 
were  wrapped  in  a  colored  cloud  which  lifted 
him  up  so  that  he  no  longer  felt  the  earth  be- 
neath his  feet.  Out  of  a  distant  roar  his  own 
voice  seemed  to  emerge  and  to  echo  sharply 
across  the  windy  square:  "Comrades!"  He 
thought  he  had  heard  himself  calling  out  and 
was  so  frightened  that  he  sunk  his  teeth  into  his 
nether  lip  and  surveyed  the  circle  of  faces  about 
him  suspiciously.  He  peered  successively  into 
every  face. 

No,  thank  God,  it  had  been  a  delusion.  And 
what  end  would  it  have  served  in  reality?  Could 
his  words  have  aroused  the  souls  of  men  whom  a 
dray  full  of  human  torment  did  not  sting  into 
revolt?  He  remembered  the  old  tale  of  King 
Midas's  servant  who  had  wanted  to  bury  his 
voice  in  the  earth.  Even  that  seemed  wiser  than 
to  hope  for  a  response  from  the  men  about  him. 
He  knew  them!  Not  more  than  two  would  risk 
so  much  as  a  nod  of  agreement.  He  knew  of 
each  man  what  attitude  he  would  assume.  He 
74 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

could  pick  out  the  better  ones  who  would  at  least 
turn  aside  in  compassion  and  feel  humiliated  by 
Ms  useless  sacrifice  of  himself.  And  then  he 
looked  at  the  many  who  would  themselves  help 
to  lay  hands  upon  the  mutineer — out  of  stupid- 
ity or  ambition,  revengefulness,  envy,  patriot- 
ism !  For  tenaciously  as  they  clung  to  life,  great 
as  was  the  dread  in  their  eyes,  they  would  never 
endure  a  liberator  from  among  themselves.  For 
this  alone  made  their  fate  tolerable,  that  they 
were  all  equal  in  wretchedness  and  suffering. 
Woe  to  him  who  would  lift  himself  above  them ! 
They  would  fall  upon  him  as  upon  the  revealer 
of  their  shame  and  would  trample  him  into 
expiation  .  .  . 

He  lowered  his  eyes.  He  could  no  longer 
endure  their  glaring  masks.  They  were  like 
grotesque  relief  figures  on  the  base  of  a  great  gen- 
eral's monument.  They  were  an  hundred  thou- 
sand arms  and  legs  animated  by  a  single  brain. 
Whatever  else  of  humanity  still  adhered  to  them 
was  mere  waste,  the  result  of  an  imperfect  mili- 
tary training. 

Gadsky  felt  again  the  profound  disgust  he  had 
experienced  when,  a  few  days  before,  this  same 
herd  of  men  had  acclaimed  the  Field  Marshal 
who  had  driven  in  an  auto  between  their  dirty, 
sweat-bathed  ranks.  On  that  day  he  had  seen 
these  extinguished  eyes  gleam,  he  had  seen  their 
faces  glow  as  though  all  that  had  left  their 
bodies  empty  shells — without  will  or  hope — lived 
on  in  that  idol  of  theirs. 

75 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

He  could  not  help  in  a  sense  hating  this  horde. 
They  were  ready  to  be  slaughtered  and  they  were 
willing  to  applaud  their  hangman  if  only  his 
great,  scientific  sickle  caused  even  greater  de- 
struction among  the  enemy.  The  enemy!  But 
there  was  no  hope  in  him.  He,  too,  had  sold 
himself  to  the  professional  murderers  who  lead 
in  war ;  he  too  dreaded  and  slew.  Gadsky  hated 
them  all — all!  He  had  been  ready  to  speak  to 
these  men  of  his  own  people,  to  sacrifice  himself. 
Why  should  he — for  these  cold,  hard,  blunted 
creatures ! 

He  passed  his  hand  over  his  forehead.  The 
memory  of  the  scene  had  been  as  vivid  as  its  real- 
ity. It  had  happened  to  him  often  recently  that 
the  past  and  the  present  had  become  inextricably 
blended  in  their  images  in  his  mind.  His  brood- 
ing had  become  so  intense  and  the  dull  monotony 
of  the  past  few  months  had  so  deadened  his  re- 
ceptivity to  reality  that  his  thoughts  threw  their 
shadows  upon  all  happenings.  The  days  had  be- 
come featureless.  The  eternally  equal  burden 
had  stamped  them  into  an  indistinguishable 
mass  of  gray,  and  only  the  dream — embraced  an 
hundred  times — the  dream  of  the  war's  end  and 
of  liberation  projected  like  a  radiant  reality  into 
the  insupportable  present. 

One  glance  seemed  to  be  tugging  at  him,  to  be 
unwilling  to  let  him  go,  and  drew  him  back  into 
that  circle  of  men.  Into  his  awakened  mind 
stared  the  deadly  pale,  perturbed  face  of  the  non- 
commissioned officer  Frobel.  The  man's  eves 
76 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

were  wide  open  with  terror,  a  deep  line  of  intense 
sorrow  ran  from  his  mouth.  But  Gadsky  felt  the 
glance  of  those  eyes  like  a  dull  challenge.  He 
clenched  his  fists  and  turned  away  at  once.  The 
wretched  coward  must  learn  to  bear  his  agony 
alone.  Each  man  had  enough  here  if  he  but  car- 
ried his  own  burden. 

"If  you  let  the  sheets  fly  away,  I'll  have  to  de- 
cline your  assistance,"  the  stretcher-bearer  said 
and  took  up  his  bag  of  documents  with  trembling 
fingers.  He  walked  off  and,  still  handling  the 
sheets  nervously,  disappeared  in  the  hut  of  the 
hospital  station.  His  going  seemed  to  release 
the  men  from  their  rigidness.  They  cleared  their 
throats  and  spat  and  lit  their  pipes  again.  Then 
one  group  broke  up  and  quickly,  as  though  re- 
lieved of  a  nightmare,  the  others  followed. 

Gadsky  saw  them  hastening  in  all  directions 
toward  the  doors  of  the  houses.  Their  heads 
were  hanging,  their  backs  were  bent.  And  at 
once  all  his  old  compassion  for  them  came  to  life 
again.  His  wrath  fell  silent  within  him  at  the 
sight  of  all  these  lowly  shoulders.  By  God,  they 
were  being  sorely  punished  for  their  obedience. 
Even  the  dullest  among  them  carried  with  him 
into  the  warm  room  of  his  billet  frightful 
images:  he  saw  himself  return  on  a  cart  as  a 
mass  of  bloody  flesh  and  sat  at  table  opposite 
his  own  corpse.  Not  one  choked  down  his  supper 
to-night  without,  as  it  were,  saying  farewell  to 
his  own  pulse  and  heart. 

With  tall,  upturned  collar,  alone  on  the  great 

77 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

square,  he  stared  shivering  at  the  deserted  wagon 
and  at  the  broken  shaft  that  projected  ever 
higher  into  the  darkness.  It  looked  like  a  gal- 
lows. And  the  thought  came  to  him  again  that 
behind  all  those  gleaming  windows  poor,  human 
sinners  were  taking  what  they  feared  might  be 
their  last  meal  on  earth.  And  he  seemed  able  to 
see  their  thoughts,  secretly  chaffering  with  their 
great  misfortune,  each  involuntarily  offering  the 
other  as  a  sacrifice  to  their  monstrous  doom. 
And  suddenly  it  became  very  clear  to  him  that 
his  own  indignation  over  the  drawn  face  of  Fro- 
bel  had  been  nothing  but  the  reaction  of  his  own 
cowardice,  a  protest  of  his  own  fear  for  himself. 
That  was  the  inner  reason  why  any  show  of  fear 
was  tabooed  among  soldiers  in  war,  because  each 
was  conscious  that  there  lived  in  him  the  treach- 
erous hope  that  he,  he  alone,  would  be  protected 
as  by  a  guardian  angel,  even  if  his  whole  battal- 
ion suffered  death.  And  whoever,  like  Frobel, 
did  not  conceal  his  fear  beneath  a  mask  of  some 
sort,  was  shamelessly  crying  out  this  secret  hope 
of  his  to  the  others:  "I  don't  want  to  die!  Go 
and  die  for  me " 

He  felt  sorry  for  Frobel.  He  meant  to  go  and 
look  him  up.  Just  then  he  felt  a  hand  on  his 
shoulder  and  when  he  swung  around  he  saw  the 
deep-blue  eyes  of  Weiler  looking  at  him  with 
deep  earnestness. 

"Have  you  seen  Frobel?"  Weiler  asked  with 
a  strange  vibration  in  his  voice.  "Poor  fellow! 
78 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

Don't  you  think  he  might  report  sick?  He  looks 
terrible." 

Gadsky  didn't  answer.  He  seemed  a  giant  to 
himself  beside  this  transparent,  slender  figure 
who  wore  his  clumsy,  muddy,  army  boots  as 
though  he  were  in  disguise.  Finally  he  said, 
forcing  himself  to  express  an  unfelt  indigna- 
tion :  "You  know,  I  think  there's  almost  a  touch 
of  affectation  in  your  pity  for  Frobel.  What  you 
can  stand,  surely  that  great  lout  with  his  non- 
com,  stripes  can  stand  too.  No  one  here  has 
more  than  one  life  to  .  .  ." 

Weiler  didn't  let  him  finish.  His  pale,  kind 
face  suddenly  lost  its  mild  radiance  and  grew 
weary  with  a  great  sadness.  "No,"  he  plead, 
"you  musn't  talk  like  the  others.  You  know  it 
isn't  a  question  of  muscles.  Imagine  that  you 
had  been  teaching  elementary  branches  to  the 
children  of  the  poor  year  in  and  year  out,  and 
that  all  your  joy  and  the  true  content  of  your  life 
had  been  summed  up  in  Frobel's  little  three-room 
flat,  and  that  your  highest  hope  had  been  to 
save  enough  for  an  extra  handsome  rug  and 
a  dictionary!  Identify  yourself  with  the  poor 
devil  for  five  minutes  and  you  will  not  judge 
him  so  harshly.  He  always  makes  me  think  of  a 
snail  who  has  built  its  little  house  from  the 
sap  of  its  own  life.  And  now  cruel  forces  come 
and  tear  the  little  house  from  the  living  flesh 
out  of  which  it  has  grown.  Last  week  when 
we  lay  under  fire  in  the  new  trench  some  one 
asked  for  the  day  of  the  month.  Frobel  replied 

79 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

quick  as  lightning  and  added  sadly :  'I  know  be- 
cause to-day  my  little  wife  is  paying  the  last 
installment  on  her  sewing-machine.  Now  they 
can't  rob  her  of  that,  at  least.'  And  even  while 
he  was  speaking  his  teeth  were  rattling  and  the 
cold  sweat  of  terror  poured  from  his  forehead. 
I  could  have  wept  over  the  smashing  of  this  poor 
happiness — this  humble  happiness  on  the  install- 
ment plan.  I  wanted  to  cry  out,  too !  To  think 
that  society  forces  men  to  become  machine-like  in 
this  fashion,  to  reckon  out  their  wretched  lives 
to  the  payment  of  a  final  penny  on  a  given  date, 
and  then  steps  in  and  shatters  their  addition 
when  it  has  just  amounted  to  a  comfortable  little 
three-room  flat  for  a  wife  and  a  child.  And  you 
needn't  pretend.  You  feel  just  as  sorry  for  him 
as  I  do." 

Gadsky  turned  away.  He  was  unmanned  by  a 
great  tenderness.  He  could  have  embraced 
Weiler  in  love  and  reverence.  For  the  latter  had 
won  a  great  victory  over  the  common  enemy  of 
friend  and  foe.  He  had  offered  an  impregnable 
proof  that  all  the  blind  force  in  the  world  can- 
not crush  the  spirit  of  an  entire  man.  Here  he 
was,  fragile  and  worn,  exhausted,  tortured,  dirty, 
about  to  set  out  on  his  march  to  death.  And  he 
had  risen  above  his  tormentors  because  he  had 
risen  above  himself.  With  all  their  insistence 
upon  uniformity,  with  all  their  hatred  of  any 
one  who  would  not  merge  himself  in  the  mass, 
they  had  not  been  able  to  change  this  poor,  tor- 
mented  slave  of  theirs  one  jot.  He  bore  the  rifle 
80 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

and  the  bayonet.  But  his  soul  was  the  soul  of 
goodness,  and  he  was  victorious  over  the  univer- 
sal machine  of  war. 

Weiler  waited  for  an  answer  and  thought  that 
Gadsky  had  rejected  his  reasoning  and  his  plea. 
"You  do  poor  Frobel  wrong,"  he  therefore  added 
softly.  "He  has  a  harder  time  than  you  or  I.  Do 
you  think  we  would  be  braver  than  he  if  our 
social  environment  had  not  taught  us  the  stoi- 
cism of  good  form?  People  of  our  kind  always, 
so  to  speak,  carry  a  mirror  before  them,  and  each 
one  suppresses  his  pain  so  as  to  hide  the 
grimace  which  might  tell  of  that  pain  to  others." 

r<No,"  Gadsky  said  thoughtfully  and  took 
Weiler's  arm.  "We're  a  bit  worse  off  just  be- 
cause of  the  mirror.  But  let  that  be.  Let's  go  to 
supper.  That  is  the  thing  we  should  be  thinking 
of,  just  like  the  others." 

He  was  about  to  draw  him  along  when,  behind 
them,  a  door  slammed  and  some  one  called  out 
to  them. 

It  was  the  stretcher-bearer.  He  approached 
them  with  long  strides  and  asked  from  afar: 
"Can  you  tell  me  where  I  can  get  some  tea  or 
rum  or  anything  hot?  I  haven't  had  anything 
warm  for  thirty  hours." 

Weiler  saw  that  the  man  was  a  corporal  and 
saluted.  Gadsky  observed  the  stranger  as  he 
slowly  took  in  all  the  details  of  Weiler's  person- 
ality. Then,  suddenly,  in  civilian  fashion,  he 
offered  his  hand. 

"Never  mind  that  sort  of  thing.  We  seem  to 

81 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

be  among  ourselves."  He  spoke  lightly,  pressed 
Weiler's  hand  and  then  turned  again  to  Gadsky. 

"Isn't  there  such  a  thing  as  an  inn  around 
here?" 

Gadsky's  face  had  brightened.  Everything 
seemed  different  to  him.  He  began  to  like  the 
corporal.  When  they  were  unloading  the 
wounded  he  had  been  too  tragically  fascinated 
by  the  fearful  bandages  and  the  flickering  rest- 
lessness of  the  dying  to  notice  the  man.  Now 
first  he  observed  him.  In  spite  of  his  long  limbs, 
his  heavy  hands,  his  sensual  lips  and  the  rough 
modeling  of  his  features,  there  was  something 
of  tenderness  and  of  sadness  about  him.  And 
Gadsky  was  quite  taken,  too,  by  the  way  in 
which  he  had  treated  Weiler  and  refused  to  be 
misled  by  the  horribly  baggy  uniform  which' 
represented  Stuff's  final  malice.  And  so  he  in- 
vited the  man  to  share  their  solemn  farewell 
meal  with  them  and  boasted  humorously  of  the 
culinary  delights  which  they  had  to  offer. 

"You'll  even  get  one  of  our  fresh  eggs,"  he 
said,  "honestly  bought,  too,  not  requisitioned. 
I'll  give  you  my  own,  if  necessary.  Because  it's 
a  wonderful  feeling  that  in  spite  of  all  obstacles 
men  of  a  certain  kind  will  find  each  other.  And 
even  if  they  tricked  us  out  like  bushmen,  that 
secret  free-masonry  would  still  prevail." 

The  corporal  laughed.  "You'll  withdraw  both 
your  favor  and  your  egg.  My  perspicacity  isn't 
so  great.  But  a  while  ago  when  you  were  work- 
ing with  the  severely  wounded  and  were  hand- 
82 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

ling  an  artillery  man  with  a  terrible  abdominal 
wound,  one  of  you  used  the  word  'moribund.' 
That's  how  I  knew."  He  was  silent  for  a  moment 
as  they  set  out  for  Gadsky's  billet.  Then  sud- 
denly in  a  dry  tone  and  with  an  angry  gleam  in 
his  eyes  he  added :  "I'm  bound  to  say  that  as  a 
rule  I  prefer  common  men.  The  officers  of  the 
reserve  and  those  who  are  ambitious  of  joining 
them — well,  I  could  tell  you  a  good  deal." 

He  started  off  again  and  the  other  two  ex- 
changed astonished  glances  behind  his  back. 
Then  Gadsky  went  ahead  and  as  he  pushed  open 
the  heavy  gate  of  the  yard  and  ushered  the  cor- 
poral into  the  darkness,  he  couldn't  help  com- 
paring him  to  the  hungry,  tousled  peasants'  dogs 
who  wandered  about.  These  animals  were  driven 
forth  by  hunger;  they  were  fierce  and  yet  hum- 
ble; they  showed  their  teeth  while  their  eyes 
begged  for  a  bite.  And  in  this  man's  eyes,  too, 
there  was  a  beseeching  look  while  his  mouth 
seemed  grim  and  hard. 

Weiler  led  the  corporal  by  the  hand  across  the 
yard,  in  the  middle  of  which  there  was  a  huge 
shell  hole.  Gadsky  remained  behind,  and  was 
soon  heard  talking  to  a  woman  who  said  in  a 
sharp,  pointed  way:  "Je  n'ai  rien,  rien,  rien." 
Weiler  at  last  found  the  keyhole  and  took  their 
guest  into  a  long,  musty  room  which  by  the 
light  of  a  pocket-lantern  revealed  itself  as  an 
abandoned  school-room. 

The  forms  had  been  piled  up  high  against  the 
rear  wall.  On  the  other  side  there  were  two  beds, 

83 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

and,  between  them,  a  straw-mattress  with  a  rolled 
up  military  coat  as  a  pillow  and  a  spread  that 
had  once  been  .sky  blue.  On  a  little  platform,  in 
front  of  the  windows,  stood  the  teacher's  desk'. 
A  great  ironing  board  had  been  put  across  it  so 
that  a  large,  horizontal  table  had  been  built. 
This  table  was  covered  with  books,  tins,  half 
emptied  bottles.  There  were  two  real  chairs  and 
one  school  bench  without  a  back. 

The  little  cast  iron  stove  was  red  hot  and 
seemed  to  fill  the  large  place  with  ghostly  rest- 
lessness, so  that  the  whole  place  struck  the 
corporal  as  surprisingly  emptied,  strangely  dis- 
peopled in  the  light  of  the  coal  oil  lamp  with  its 
quivering  shadows.  He  looked  about  and  smiled 
sadly  at  the  map  of  France  against  the  wall, 
which  was  now  flanked,  in  all  innocence,  of 
course,  by  the  trench-helmets  and  side-arms  of 
the  billeted  Germans.  Then  he  dropped  wearily 
into  a  chair  and  gazed  at  his  great  muddy  boots, 
while  Weiler  busied  himself  with  plates  and 
glasses  in  a  corner. 

"You're  well  taken  care  of  here,"  he  said  after 
a  long  pause.  And  when  the  voices  of  Gadsky 
and  of  the  woman  of  the  house  became  audible 
in  the  yard,  he  added:  "Your  friend  seems  to 
be  on  excellent  terms  with  her." 

Weiler  emerged  from  his  corner  into  the  light 
of  the  lamp  before  he  answered.  "The  poor 
woman's  husband  is  over  in  the  French  lines,  and 
she  always  complains  that  she  can't  look  at  our 
rifles  without  thinking  that  it  may  be  from  one 
84 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

of  them  that  some  day  the  bullet  will  fly  that 
will  widow  her.  And  it  is  frightful.  She  trembles 
for  her  husband  and  has  to  look  on  as  we  load 
ourselves  with  munition.  Of  course,  it's  the 
same  with  our  women  in  Upper  Alsace  and  was 
so  in  East  Prussia.  That  doesn't  make  it  the  less 
painful." 

The  corporal  jumped  up.  "You  haven't  been 
at  the  front  very  long,  I  take  it,  since  you  are 
still  able  to  let  the  fate  of  individuals  move  you. 
That  is  the  first  impulse  which  you  must  crush 
in  you  if  you  want  to  endure  it.  A  certain 
Frenchwoman !  You  musn't  let  the  idea  come  to 
you.  We  dare  not  think  of  individual  French- 
men in  the  enemy  trenches,  any  more  than  they 
dare  think  of  Karl  Schulze  or  Ernst  Miiller. 
You  must  work  with  collective  concepts :  wound- 
ed, dead,  enemies,  comrades.  And  thus  too  you 
must  regard  the  inhabitants  of  the  occupied 
areas.  You  must  simply  merg'e  your  French 
teacher's  life  in  the  mass.  You  saw  me  unload 
my  cart  awhile  ago?  To-morrow  I'll  come  with 
a  similar  load,  and  day  after  to-morrow  with 
another.  And  that  has  been  my  life  for  seven 
months.  Nothing  has  changed  but  the  land- 
scape. Sometimes  it  was  in  Poland,  sometimes 
in  Flanders,  to-day  it's  near  Verdun,  to-morrow 
it  may  be  in  the  Carpathians.  Try  to  imagine 
what  would  have  become  of  me  if  I  hadn't 
learned  to  think  of  men  simply  in  the  mass,  if  I 
knew  to-day  whom  I  had  picked  up  yesterday, 
and  would  mourn  to-morrow  over  the  little 

85 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

sharp-shooter  both  of  whose  legs  were  torn  off! 
I've  restricted  myself  to  numbers.  To-day  my 
cases  numbered  thirty-seven — including  six 
severely  wounded.  That's  all  I  dare  to  know. 
You  must  do  the  same.  It's  the  only  point  of 
view  that  can  keep  a  man  sane." 

Weiler  did  not  answer.  He  watched  the  other 
walk  up  and  down  with  great  strides  and  ob- 
served the  restlessness  in  the  quivering,  strange- 
ly crumpled  face.  He  hung  his  head,  for  he 
realized  that  behind  the 'man's  enforced  rough- 
ness there  lurked  an  all  but  irrepressible  despair. 
He  turned  around  and  was  about  to  go  back  to 
his  corner  when  the  corporal  suddenly  emerged 
from  his  thoughts  into  speech  again. 

"You  haven't,  I  know,  grasped  my  peculiar 
vision  yet.  We  cannot  let  ourselves  be  crushed. 
We,  each  one  of  us,  is  bearing  his  share  of  the 
intolerable  burden  that  is  making  the  knees  of 
humanity  tremble.  We  dare  not  increase  it — we 
dare  not.  Here  I've  known  you  for  one  hour  and 
I've  seen  you  go  behind  the  barracks  to  the  little 
sharp-shooter  and  take  upon  your  feeble  shoul- 
ders the  added  burden  of  his  woe,  and  now  you 
tell  me  that  you  also  act  as  a  burden  bearer  for 
this  poor  woman  who  has  to  watch  you  equip 
yourself  for  the  hunting  of  her  husband  .  .  .  Let 
me  tell  you  how  matters  stand.  Kecall  some  hot, 
old-fashioned  summer  day  in  times  of  peace,  far 
in  the  country,  when  the  flies  were  so  bad  that 
something  had  to  be  done.  People  placed  on  the 
table  a  subtly  contrived  globe  of  glass  which  let 
86 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

the  flies  get  in  at  the  top.  But  there  was  no 
return  for  them,  and  exhausted  at  last,  they  fell 
into  the  water  at  the  bottom  and  were  drowned. 
The  poor  beasts  raged  and  agonized,  swam  on 
their  backs  and  struggled  with  their  tiny  legs — 
and  we  sat  at  the  table  reading  or  talking  and 
almost  unconscious  of  their  despairing  buzzing. 
We  didn't  really  notice  that  a  life  and  death 
struggle  was  taking  place  before  us.  Well,  for 
flies  substitute — men.  That  is  war.  The  substi- 
tution isn't  hard  to  make.  Men  are  falling  like 
flies.  Let  them  lament  and  struggle  but  don't 
look  in  their  direction.  For  we  are  all  in  the 
same  great  trap.  And  take  my  word  for  it :  who- 
ever doesn't  dedicate  himself  wholly  to  the  task 
of  getting  himself  out  of  the  trap  with  sound 
limbs  will  die  the  death  of  a  fly." 

Weiler  twitched.  The  comparison  had  awak- 
ened him.  He  grasped  the  corporal  by  the  arm 
and  his  voice  was  hoarse  with  excitement. 
"That's  just  what  I  shall  never  understand — • 
never !  Imagine  the  generals  on  both  sides  who 
sit  behind  their  respective  fronts  quite  comfort- 
ably and  are  responsible  for  the  slaughter  and 
really  treat  their  men  as  if  they  were  mere  ver- 
min !  Can  your  mind  grasp  it  that  there  are  men 
— Germans,  Frenchmen — who  coldly  plan  an  at- 
tack that  will  cost  ten  thousand  human  lives, 
give  the  command  for  it,  and  then  calmly  sit 
down  to  dine  in  expectation  of  the  bulletins  of 
victory?  Listen!  A  few  weeks  ago,  immediately 
after  our  detrainment,  we  marched  by  the  head- 

87 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

quarters  of  our  army  at  noon.  The  gentlemen 
were  sitting  on  the  terrace  of  a  chateau  taking 
their  after-dinner  coffee  and  we  could  see  the 
glint  of  the  porcelain  and  the  glitter  of  the 
silver  and  the  blue  puffs  of  cigarette  smoke. 
And  there  floated  toward  us  the  sound  of  calm 
speech  and  even  now  and  then,  of  laughter.  And 
on  the  road,  on  a  motorcycle,  a  messenger  on  his 
way  to  headquarters  met  us.  And  the  man's 
face  was  still  a  sort  of  death  mask  from  the 
horrors  he  had  seen.  He  called  out  to  us :  'You'd 
better  look  out!  It's  hell  out  there!  Oh,  it's 
sheer  hell !'  And  those  two  pictures  I  have  been 
carrying  about  with  me  ever  since — the  terrace 
in  the  sunshine  and  that  man's  face.  And  when- 
ever I  lie  in  the  trench  under  fire,  or  see  a  poor 
devil  like  that  little  sharp-shooter,  I  seem  to  see 
in  the  background  of  the  war  those  sunny 
chateaux  in  which  the  gentlemen  on  the  general 
staffs  of  all  the  armies  concerned  drink  their 
after-dinner  coffee  and  smoke  their  cigarettes." 
He  had  spoken  very  swiftly  and  now  took  a 
deep  breath  and  there  was  a  keen  despair  in 
his  large,  shining  eyes.  And  when  the  corporal 
only  gave  a  sarcastic  smile  and  shrug,  he  burst 
out  again  and  cried  in  his  cruel  indignation: 
"How  do  you  know  what  the  sufferings  of  a  fly 
really  are?  Who  knows  what  its  little  life  means 
to  it?  No  one.  But  those  gentlemen  know  very 
well  what  it  means  to  a  man  to  die.  From  the 
general  down  to  the  junior  telephone  operator  on 
his  staff,  they  have  each  been  in  some  room  of 
88 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

death;  they  know  how  breaking  eyes  still  cling 
to  this  visible  world  that  is  all  we  know,  and 
how  the  poor  hands  grasp  for  one  last  contact 
with  life !  In  cities,  they  put  straw  in  the  streets 
and  the  tramways  stop  ringing  their  bells  and 
no  one  passes  without  a  shadow  in  his  soul — if 
but  one  man  is  dying — one !  And  here  these  gen- 
tlemen have  learned  to  laugh  while  day  by  day 
thousands — thousands " 

The  corporal  interrupted  him.  "Precisely. 
One  dying  man  is  sacred  in  their  eyes.  But  a 
thousand  who  die,  ten  thousand  dead — ah,  then 
the  emphasis  is  shifted  on  to  the  number.  All 
they  feel  is — how  many?  Hush,  some  one  is  com- 
ing!" He  interrupted  himself  at  once  and  lis- 
tened tensely. 

Weiler's  lips  still  quivered.  It  was  hard  for 
him  to  master  the  indignation  of  his  soul  so  sud- 
denly. The  sudden  stopping  of  the  corporal 
brought  their  position  home  to  them  again.  Had 
the  whole  world  been  turned  into  a  "Holy  Rus- 
sia?" Were  all  free  men  in  all  countries  in  the 
position  of  servants  who  must  stop  their  gossip 
at  the  approach  of  the  master's  step?  ...  A 
deep  shame  took  the  place  of  his  anger.  "It's 
only  Gadsky  with  the  food,"  he  said.  Then  he 
slunk  back  to  the  stove  and  got  the  plates  and 
glasses  and  put  them  on  the  table,  bowed  by  the 
feeling  of  their  deep  humiliation. 

Gadsky  had  the  air  of  a  victor.  He  had  a 
steaming  bowl  in  which  the  promised  eggs  were 
swimming  and  his  success  had  brightened  his 

89 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

mood.  In  his  conference  with  the  woman  of  the 
house  and  his  desire  to  be  hospitable  he  had  for- 
gotten everything  else  and  it  took  some  minutes 
before  he  became  aware  of  the  fact  that  the  other 
two  men  had  talked  themselves  into  an  entirely 
different  mood  during  his  absence. 

"Mme.  Veriot  is  an  angel,"  he  cried,  and  next 
to  the  bowl  he  put  down  two  dust-covered  bot- 
tles which  he  had  brought  in  under  his  arms. 
^She  has  given  me  the  two  last  bottles  of  wine 
out  of  her  cellar.  Of  course,  I  had  to  tell  her 
that  our  new  guest  is  a  common  school  teacher, 
too."  And  while  he  moved  the  bench  nearer  to 
the  table  and  cleared  one  of  the  chairs  for  their 
guest,  he  added  laughingly :  "We  all  pretend  to 
be  teachers  to  please  her,  you  know." 

"That's  a  queer  sort  of  confidence  game,"  the 
corporal  answered  absent-mindedly. 

"Oh,"  Gadsky  protested  with  a  laugh,  "not  so 
queer.  Our  immediate  superior  officer  Frobel  is 
really  a  teacher  in  civilian  life.  We  should  never 
have  gotten  this  splendid  place  without  him. 
Even  my  very  decent  French  wouldn't  have 
helped.  But  I  trotted  out  the  group  picture  of 
the  Frobel  family.  And  no  one  can  convince 
Mme.  Veriot  that  a  teacher  can  be  a  bad  man. 
She  knows  from  experience  that  a  teacher  really 
prefers  the  rod  for  children  to  the  rifle  for  men. 
Occasionally,  of  course,  she  remembers  that  we 
are  enemies.  But  then  I  say  to  her  in  my  nicest 
French:  'Come  now,  your  good  husband  is  also 
forced  to  try  to  kill  our  comrades!'  And  that 
90 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

obviously  sensible  remark  brings  back  her  friend- 
liness at  once." 

He  had  grown  graver  again  during  his  last 
sentences.  He  looked  at  Weiler,  then  at  their 
guest,  and  when  the  silence  lengthened  his  su- 
perficial and  half-enforced  cheerfulness  vanished 
too.  "What's  gotten  into  you?"  He  turned  to 
Weiler  was  a  touch  of  annoyance.  "All  we  need 
now,  of  course,  is  Frobel  with  his  grave-digger's 
expression.  Then  the  funeral  feast  would  be 
complete.  You're  usually  more  sensible." 

Weiler  raised  his  head  slowly.  "Where  is 
Frobel?" 

"Oh,  he's  an  awful  fool,"  Gadsky  replied. 
"He's  standing  in  the  square  and  gazes  yearning- 
ly at  the  wounded.  And  when  they're  put  into 
the  ambulances  and  the  ambulances  start  back 
home,  the  tears  trickle  down  his  face.  He'll  go 
on  until  some  one  tells  the  captain  and  then  it 
won't  be  so  pleasant  for  him.  I  wouldn't  like  to 
be  a  member  of  his  squad." 

Weiler  had  listened  impatiently.  "Do  you 
really  think  it  so  incomprehensible  that  the  poor 
fellow  gazes  at  the  autos?  Is  there  a  keener 
temptation  than  the  sight  of  those  cars  that 
go  home?  The  road  home  is  daily  before  his 
eyes.  It's  like  a  rope,  at  the  other  end  of  which 
his  wife  and  children  are  tugging  with  desperate 
energy  to  pull  their  unique  and  irreplaceable 
Karl  Frobel  back  out  of  danger !  Can  you  blame 
him  for  gazing  at  it,  turning  back  to  it  like  an  ox 
that  is  led  to  the  slaughter?" 

91 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

"I  don't  think  your  comparison  is  a  very  hon- 
orable one.  What  is  the  use  of  his  human  reason 
if  it  does  not  teach  him  to  resign  himself  to  the 
inevitable?  Can  you  tell  me  .  .  ." 

Weiler  had  been  walking  through  the  room. 
He  stopped  in  front  of  Gadsky  and  interrupted 
him.  "Can  you  tell  me  what  the  reason  has  to 
do  with  war?  If  you  set  fire  tp  FrobeFs  house  I 
assure  you  that  he  will  save  his  little  daughter 
at  the  risk  of  his  life.  He  might  even  risk  it  for 
some  object  for  which  his  wife  and  he  had  toiled 
and  saved.  But  it  is  precisely  his  reason  that 
prevents  him  from  resigning  himself.  He  knows 
very  well  that  poor  M.  Veriot  has  just  as  little 
desire  to  harm  Frau  Frobel  as  he  has  to  harm 
Mme.  Veriot.  How  often  have  you  yourself  in- 
sisted that  it  was  much  easier  for  those  men,  who 
go  to  their  death  in  the  profoundly  sincere  con- 
viction that  there  is,  humanly  speaking,  no 
choice — that  we  must  slay  the  enemy  or  he  will 
slay  us!  And  as  for  enthusiasm!  A  man  who, 
for  thirty-five  years,  has  lived  the  life  of  an 
angle-worm  cannot  suddenly  soar  with  the 
eagles.  And  you're  the  last  one  to  reproach  him 
with  his  sobriety  of  mind.  You've  yourself  point- 
ed out  to  him  how  the  papers — French  and 
English  and  German — all  play  the  same  game 
of  lies.  And  you  have  told  him  of  your  French 
and  English  friends.  And  now  that  you  have 
destroyed  the  simplicities  of  his  patriotic  faith, 
you  .  .  ." 

"Well  now,  look  here !  I  beg  of  you !  I  haven't 
92 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

anything  against  Frobel.  But  I  can't  have  you 
make  me  responsible." 

He  was  standing  upright  and  waving  his  arm. 
Suddenly  the  corporal  touched  him  and  said: 
"Permit  me  one  question:  are  you  going  to  the 
firing-line  for  the  first  time  to-day?" 

Gadsky  looked  in  astonishment  at  the  hand 
that  touched  his  arm.  He  suspected  for  a  mo- 
ment some  quiet  irony  in  the  question.  But  the 
calm  steadfastness  of  the  sad,  compassionate 
eyes  at  once  soothed  him.  "Yes  and  no,"  he 
answered  hesitatingly.  "We've  been  taken  to 
the  immediate  front  five  times,  but  each  time 
without  being  utilized.  The  barrage  bit  into  us 
pretty  thoroughly  each  time.  Once  it  fell  pre- 
cisely on  the  second  line  of  trenches  in  which  we 
were  waiting  and  our  losses  were  actually 
greater  than  those  of  the  battalion  that  repulsed 
the  enemy  attack.  Another  time  the  expected 
attack  didn't  come  off.  Last  week  again  no  one 
seemed  to  know  why  we  were  taken  out  at  all. 
Our  losses  seemed  like  sheer  waste  and,  of  course, 
we  weren't  due  for  any  distinctions  either,  since 
we  were  not  technically  in  the  fight.  But  it  may 
be  significant  if  I  tell  you  that  our  captain  hasn't 
the  iron  cross  yet."  And  after  a  brief  pause  he 
added  with  a  bitter  smile,  "We'll  fetch  it  for 
him  to-day  without  fail  because  we're  going  into 
the  front  trenches  to  relieve  other  troops.  I  sup- 
pose I  ought  to  say  'Thank  God,'  or  'at  last!' 
The  captain  expects  his  men  to  be  burning  for 
their  chance  of  trying  out  their  bayonets.  Even 

93 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

his  adjutant,  a  former  teller  in  the  German 
Bank,  acts  as  if  he  could  hardly  restrain  himself 
any  longer.  He  thinks  it's  the  last  word  of  good 
form  to  lick  his  lips  at  the  expectation  of  mur- 
dering or  being  murdered." 

His  silence  was  full  of  thought  and  he  looked 
surreptitiously  over  at  Weiler  who  was  still 
walking  back  and  forth.  Then  he  turned  again 
to  their  guest  and,  in  spite  of  himself,  used  the 
old,  vexed  tone :  "Don't  you  think,  too,  that  one 
has  to  have  a  very  good  memory  in  order  to  cling 
to  life  when  one  is  here?  I  really  think  they 
make  it  damned  easy  for  us  to  say  farewell  to  the 
sun.  Whoever  has  a  spark  of  personal  pride  left 
in  him  is  as  well  prepared  as  a  cancer  patient 
who  desires  to  be  relieved  of  his  misery  even  by 
death.  Of  course,  I'm  not  thinking  of  Frobel. 
For  people  like  him  life  is  its  own  sufficient  aim 
and  justification.  But  men  who  have  always 
been  accustomed  to  use  life  for  some  higher  aim, 
the  intellectuals  who  were  always  willing  to 
spend  themselves  and  their  strength  for  some- 
thing beyond  themselves — for  them  the  problem 
as  to  what  they  are  asked  to  die  for  is  of  supreme 
importance.  It  isn't  true,  in  addition,  that  war  is 
the  only  Moloch  that  demands  to  be  fed  with 
human  flesh.  When,  on  the  first  day  of  general 
mobilization,  I  hastened  back  from  Italy,  the 
conductor  on  the  train  that  took  us  through  the 
Alpine  tunnel  told  me  that  when  the  tunnel  was 
dug  the  water  rose  unexpectedly  at  one  point 
and  twenty  men  were  drowned.  Those  men  were 
94 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

just  as  anxious  to  have  their  chance  at  life  as 
Frobel.  As  for  me,  I  am  willing,  if  necessary,  to 
die  for  the  sake  of  a  tunnel  that  brings  two 
great  nations  nearer  to  one  another  and  confirms 
man's  mastery  over  nature.  But  there  is,  you 
see,  that  difference  between  the  men  who  live 
only  for  salary  increases  and  the  few  who  don't 
measure  existence  exclusively  by  their  stomachs 
and  their  bank  accounts.  Every  thinking  man 
must  be  capable  of  throwing  his  life  away  for  an 
idea.  But  I  no  longer  see  one  in  this  war !  I  see 
greed,  vengefulness,  above  all,  a  stupid  helpless- 
ness to  restrain  the  raging  fires  on  all  sides  alike. 
At  the  start  I  volunteered.  .  .  . !" 

"So  did  I."  The  corporal  nodded  sadly.  His 
gray,  faithful  eyes  were  fastened  on  Gadsky's 
face.  The  latter  had  lost  the  thread  of  his  dis- 
course for  a  moment.  But  now  he  plunged  back 
as  though  all  the  stored  up  brooding,  the  bitter- 
ness of  all  the  weeks  had  to  be  given  forth,  as 
though  he  feared  to  die  without  having  expressed 
himself  thoroughly.  "And  so,  since  no  visible  or 
noble  aim  is  left,  what  does  it  come  to?  That 
men  are  trained  like  bloodhounds  to  jump  at 
each  other's  throats.  And  we  have  endured  that 
training.  There  is  the  unspeakable  shame  that  is 
poisoning  the  soul  of  mankind.  What  decent 
man  in  any  country  will,  if  ever  peace  comes,  be 
able  to  face  his  own  defiled  soul  again?  Who 
will  be  able  to  cleanse  himself  from  his  own  sub- 
mission to  dirty,  arbitrary  force,  from  the 
tyranny  of  men  who  are  in  no  wise  his  equals — 

95 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

who  are  without  vision  or  culture  or  inner  dig- 
nity? Do  you  think  that  one  has  to  be  partic- 
ularly lofty  to  feel  that?  I  don't  deny  the  effi- 
ciency of  the  methods  employed.  In  the  long  run 
no  soldier  in  any  army  will  go  on  fighting  unless 
he  fears  the  court  martial  at 'his  back  more  than 
the  enemy  before  him.  And  why  should  he?  At 
first  each  nation  raised  the  cry  of  self-defense! 
Very  well.  But  to-day?  Murder  will  out!  So 
will  greed!  Our  militarists  want  the  Belgian 
coast,  their  French  colleagues  want  the  German 
coal  country,  the  English  colleagues  want  Africa 
and  the  whole  Orient.  What  is  left?  A  very 
simple  formula  for  the  men  actually  fighting: 
You  go  on  killing  simply  to  go  on  living.  Who- 
ever isn't  satisfied  with  this  war-aim  had  better 
not,  at  least,  ladle  out  subtleties  to  his  com- 
rades .  .  .  " 

Weiler  could  control  himself  no  longer.  His 
face  was  crimson  and  he  cried  out  to  Gadsky: 
"Why  do  you  say  that?  How  dare  you  say  that? 
Don't  you  know?  But  of  course  you  do  .  .  ." 
He  seemed  about  to  leap  at  Gadsky. 

The  corporal  had  been  watching  Weiler.  He 
moved  nearer  to  Gadsky  and  turned  around.  He 
begged  Weiler  to  forgive  him  for  interrupting 
him.  Then  he  said:  "I  wanted  to  explain  why 
I  annoyed  you  with  the  question  just  now 
whether  you  were  going  into  action  for  the  first 
time  to-day.  It  is  because  every  time  I  visit  the 
rear  lines  and  the  billets  I  witness  the  same 
curious  struggle.  And  it  is  always  the  best 
96 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

friends  and  comrades  who  seem  fated  to  vent  on 
each  other  their  suppressed  irritation,  their 
strangely  hostile  moods.  Among  the  common 
men  it  usually  leads  to  little  fights.  And  the 
men,  later  on,  can't  possibly  tell  what  started  it. 
I've  never  known  it  to  fail.  It  seems  almost  as 
if  people  had  to  rehearse  the  hatred  which  they 
are  supposed  to  feel  in  face  of  the  enemy  and 
for  which  they  haven't  the  slightest  natural 
aptitude.  But  in  reality  that  deep  irritation  is 
directed  against  all  one's  comrades  collectively 
and  against  each  one  in  particular.  And  the 
reason  is  this:  The  consciousness  knows  dimly 
that  if  all  one's  comrades  were  suddenly  to  dis- 
appear, if  there  were  left  no  one  to  jeer  or 
despise  one,  then  one  could  calmly  turn  one's 
back  to  danger  and  resolve  to  return  to  life. 
We're  no  better  off  than  shipwrecked  men.  The 
sharks  are  showing  their  fangs.  And  a  rope  is 
within  our  reach  and  we  cannot  take  it  because 
we  dare  not  risk  the  judgment  of  the  onlookers." 

"An  excellent  comparison,"  Gadsky  said  with 
an  ironic  smile.  "But  it  applies  only  to  the  peo- 
ple at  home.  They  are  the  onlookers  who  have 
firm  planks  under  them,  who  are  safe  ifrom 
danger  and  whom  .  .  ." 

"Whom,  however,"  the  corporal  continued  for 
him,  "one  doesn't  see.  But  our  comrades  are  on 
the  spot.  Their  example  controls  our  actions. 
And  in  that  fact  lurks  the  secret  of  our  irritation 
against  them.  Each  nurses  a  little  enmity 
against  the  other,  because  that  other  contributes 

97 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

his  infinitesimal  share  to  the  total  social  pres- 
sure that  drives  him  to  the  butcher's  block.  And 
what  do  you  expect?  It's  like  a  terrible  mutual 
corralling  process.  I  grant  you  gladly  that  the 
drivers  at  home  who  are  safe  make  the  most 
bloodthirsty  gestures.  I  have  an  old  uncle  there, 
aged  sixty-eight,  who  gives  a  prize — a  handsome 
cigar  case — for  every  slacker  that  one  of  his  ac- 
quaintances hounds  into  publicity.  But  these 
people  can't  hurt  us.  We'd  soon  get  rid  of  them 
without  those  others  who  are  willing  to  swim  and 
to  sink  at  one's  side." 

Gadsky  did  not  reply  but  stared  at  the  lamp. 
Before  his  inner  vision  appeared  again  the  great, 
empty  square  with  the  shaft  of  the  wagon  against 
the  darkening  sky.  Again  he  saw  the  frightened 
faces  of  the  soldiers  with  the  secret,  lurking  ex- 
pectation in  their  eyes.  And  a  strange  pressure 
seemed  to  descend  upon  him,  for  he  knew  now 
that  the  stranger's  voice  had  given  utterance  to 
his  own  most  hidden  thoughts.  And  Weiler,  too, 
was  silent  and  walked  up  and  down,  shamed  by 
the  cold  objectivity  with  which  the  corporal  laid 
bare  the  feelings  against  which  he  had  been 
struggling  in  his  innermost  heart.  And  he  felt 
the  impulse  to  go  over  to  Gadsky  and  press  his 
hand  and  ask  his  pardon  for  the  violence  he  had 
shown.  But  his  dislike  of  any  emotional  expan- 
siveness  restrained  him. 

The  corporal  seemed  lost  in  thought.  Drops 
of  the  red  wine  had  been  spilt  on  the  table,  and 
98 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

using  a  burnt  out  match  he  drew  little  channels 
of  red  on  the  pale  wood. 

There  was  no  sound  in  the  room  for  a  time 
except  the  resonant  steps  of  Weiler.  Then  sud- 
denly the  corporal  threw  back  his  head  and  said : 
"You  see,  when  we  met  and  I  said  something 
hostile  about  the  educated  classes,  you  suddenly 
looked  at  me  almost  as  though  I  were  a  danger- 
ous animal.  And  now  it  turns  out  that  you  have 
just  my  own  deep  grudge  against  them." 

He  laughed  a  hoarse  laugh  as  Gadsky  gazed 
at  him  in  utter  astonishment  and  went  on.  "Of 
course  you  have !  You  will  not  assert  that  it  is 
the  humble  men  who  pretend  that  they  are  no- 
where so  happy  as  at  the  front.  Whenever  I  have 
seen  a  man  say,  with  an  artificial  gleam  in  his 
eyes,  that  he  hoped  soon  to  return  to  the  front, 
it  was  invariably  a  member  of  the  educated 
classes.  Peasants  and  proletarians  haven't  the 
inner  elasticity  that  is  necessary  for  a  man  to 
adopt  an  attitude  as  a  matter  of  good  form  and 
patriotic  custom.  Those  poor  fellows  go  where 
they  are  led  in  dull  resignation,  do  as  they  are 
commanded,  fight  and  lie  down  to  die,  if  need 
be,  in  the  honest  conviction  that  it  is  probably 
necessary  since  it  has  been  so  arranged.  I  bite 
my  lips  till  the  blood  comes  each  time  I  pick  up 
a  poor  fellow  of  this  kind.  For  these  men  are 
exactly  in  the  position  of  the  stokers  on  an  ocean 
liner.  They  see  nothing  of  the  beauties  of  the 
voyage.  But  if  trouble  comes  they  are  the  first 
to  drown.  And  they  go  to  their  death  without 

99 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

ever  having  reached  the  deck.  They  sweat  over 
their  fires;  they  don't  know  the  direction  of  the 
voyage;  they  obey  orders  blindly,  and  strangely 
enough,  they  don't  grudge  the  happy  passengers 
their  free  vision  and  clean  air  and  easy  life.  And 
they  do  all  that  to  be  rid  of  all  responsibility., 
Can  you  imagine  anything  worse  than  the  deceiv- 
ing of  such  trust?  And  think  of  the  crowd  that 
has  walked  the  promenade  deck  all  these  years — - 
on  the  liners  of  all  the  nations — and  has  not 
watched  the  mighty  ones  on  the  bridge  nor  ques- 
tioned whither  the  course  was  set.  But  now 
these  fine  passengers  throng  the  life-boats  and 
the  humble  man  below  pays  the  piper  again  and 
fills  the  great  graveyards  of  the  war." 

"That's  not  just,"  Gadsky  exclaimed.  "The 
common  people  are  in  an  absolute  majority.  If 
you  consider  the  numerical  proportion,  you  will 
find  that  just  as  many " 

"Oh,  no,"  the  corporal  cried  passionately,  and 
shook  his  head  so  energetically  that  strands  of 
hair  fell  across  his  forehead.  "Yours  is  the 
graver  injustice.  It  isn't  a  question  of  percent- 
ages. A  hundred  thousand  dead  are  more  than 
a  thousand,  even  if  the  figures  represent  the -same 
percentage  of  quite  artificial  divisions.  But  even 
as  an  argument  yours  won't  hold  water.  The 
common  soldier  is  cannon  fodder — precisely  as  it 
is  at  sea.  For  the  fine  people  above  there  are, 
after  all,  life-belts  and  life-boats.  Whoever  can 
manage  it  avoids  infantry  service  and  brings  his 
100 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

money  and  his  influence  to  bear  on  the  situa- 
tion." 

"Not  among  us,"  Gadsky  said  earnestly. 
"Truth  is  truth.  It  may  be  so  in  the  enemy 
countries  .  .  ." 

The  corporal  laughed  a  jeering,  aggressive 
laugh.  "It's  not  unknown  even  among  us.  That 
it  is  far  rarer,  I  grant  you.  The  only  question 
is:  why?  You  haven't,  after  all,  reflected  very 
deeply  about  the  inner  connection  of  things.  For 
first  you  are  indignant  over  the  wretched  hypoc- 
risy that  pretends  in  its  disgusting  way  that  war 
as  we  see  it  is  a  great  and  glorious  thing,  and 
then  you  boast  with  righteous  pride  that  there 
are  so  few  among  us  who  have  the  courage  to 
show  that  they  don't  wish  to  die !" 

But  Gadsky's  patience  was  at  an  end.  "My 
dear  man,  if  you  interpret  anything  I  have  said 
as  a  defense  of  slackers — I'm  sorry.  I  tried  to 
make  my  meaning  as  clear  as  possible.  It  is  just 
this  dull,  indifferent  crowd  with  its  mere  animal 
patience  that  I  detest.  I  protest  against  the 
bestial  injustice  of  trying  to  depress  all  men  to 
this  crowd's  level,  just  because  it  is  easier  to  do 
that  than  to  elevate  the  masses  to  one's  own 
standard.  But  you  must  not  draw  the  conclusion 
that  I  am  hostile  to  the  strong,  to  those  who 
know  and  yet  have  their  enthusiasm  and  make 
the  supreme  sacrifice  joyously!" 

Weiler  jumped  up  and  shot  like  a  bolt  over 
to  the  table  where  Gadsky  was.  "Joyous  sacri- 
fice," he  repeated.  "Are  you  going  to  defend  that 

101 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

hypocrisy  now?  You're  like  a  weathercock 
Your  mother  loved  assuredly  you  and  nursed 
you  when  necessary.  But  it  never,  just  as  surely, 
occurred  to  her,  to  be  jubilant  over  an  illness  of 
yours  because  it  gave  her  an  opportunity  for 
self-sacrifice.  And  war  is  nothing  but  a  disease, 
a  disease  of  blood  and  tears." 

"I  wasn't  talking  of  jubilation,"  Gadsky  said 
drily  and  waved  his  hand  with  a  touch  of  irrita- 
tion as  the  corporal  interrupted  him  again. 

"But  there  was  jubilation,  certainly  in  North 
Germany,  and  just  as  certainly  in  Paris.  The 
mobilization  found  me  far  in  the  South  of  Ger- 
many and  I  was  able  to  observe  the  mood  in 
many  places.  Of  course  there  were  everywhere 
thoughtless  howlers.  But  I  remember  how  sur- 
prised I  was  when  near  Halle  I  met  the  first 
radiant  faces.  Don't  misunderstand  me.  In  the 
South  of  Germany,  too,  every  man  was  ready  to 
do  what  he  conceived  to  be  his  duty.  But  be- 
hind the  iron  determination  there  lurked  a  sense 
of  horror.  And  the  higher  one  ascended  in  the 
social  scale  the  more  profound  one  saw  the  grief 
and  disappointment  to  be  over  the  fact  that  the 
twentieth  century  could  still  endure  such  things. 
I  am  not  sure  that  a  jubilant  tone  would  have 
been  tolerated  there.  In  Berlin,  as  in  Paris  and, 
for  all  I  know,  in  London,  it  was  just  the  other 
way  around.  In  the  East  End  I  saw  a  few  poor, 
grief-stricken  women  and  tearful  farewells.  But 
Unter  den  Linden  the  mood  was  a  festive  one. 
Ladies  in  costly  gowns  and  white-haired  privy 
102 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

councilors  rejoiced  over  the  prospect  as  though 
war  were  a  necessary  or  a  desirable  thing.  It 
wasn't  enough  there  to  go  when  you  were  called. 
It  was  not  enough  to  assent  and  do  your  duty. 
Whoever  wanted  to  be  known  as  a  red-blooded 
patriot  had  to  accept  the  war  not  only  without 
sorrow,  but  with  a  sort  of  self-righteous  joy.  And 
stories  have  filtered  through  from  other  coun- 
tries that  tell — in  accordance  with  the  differ- 
ences in  national  temperament — the  same  story. 
The  intellectuals  and  the  bourgeoisie  of  the 
world  gloated  over  the  war!" 

"Not  over  the  war,"  Gadsky  protested.  "Not 
over  the  war.  That's  perverting  the  facts.  I 
know  that  there  were  foolish  and  base  individ- 
uals. And  I  don't  deny  that  there  are  people 
who  think  it's  good  form  to  be  bloodthirsty  and 
rabid  in  case  of  war.  I'm  the  last  man  to  wish 
to  defend  these  vile  fools  and  snobs.  But  I  do 
deny  that  this  sort  was  very  numerous  among  us. 
The  honest  exaltation  of  those  August  days  of 
1914,  at  least,  came  from  deeper  and  nobler 
sources.  Whoever  does  make  a  great  sacrifice, 
should  make  it  gladly." 

"Oh,  how  splendid,"  came  from  Weiler  with 
fierce  sarcasm.  "The  instance  of  the  mother 
again :  Hurrah !  my  boy  has  typhoid !  Now  I  can 
nurse  him  with  complete  self-abnegation." 

The  corporal  acknowledged  Weiler's  remark 
with  a  smile.  Then  he  shoved  him  very  gently 
aside  and  went  close  up  to  Gadsky.  "You're 
simply  contradicting  us  now  because  you've  been 

103 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

put  in  a  defensive  position,"  he  said  almost 
heartily  and  with  that  ingratiating  calm  which 
at  once  passed  over  the  argument  like  a  current 
of  refreshing  air.  "And  also,"  he  went  on,  "be- 
cause there  are  things  that  one  doesn't  like  to 
hear  said  even  if  one  secretly  harbors  exactly 
the  same  view.  I  know  that  feeling.  I've  had 
it  happen  to  me  to  defend  something  simply  be- 
cause some  one  else  has  been  aggressive.  But 
you're  in  an  intellectual  blind  alley  just  now. 
There  is  no  sense  in  denying  the  effect  after 
you've  granted  the  cause.  I  have  no  wish  to  be 
hard  on  my  country.  But  I  wish  to  see  clearly. 
Other  countries  have  other  faults  quite  as  grave. 
And  the  faults  of  both  have  been  produced  by 
historical  and  other  causes  that  are,  so  far  as 
we  know,  not  within  any  conscious  human  con- 
trol. And  therefore  I  am  not  afraid  to  say  that, 
even  in  peace,  military  ideas  and  manners  were 
more  fashionable  among  us  than  elsewhere.  A 
man  who  wanted  to  impress  women  of  a  Sunday 
— what  did  he  do?  He  pretended  to  be  an  officer 
in  mufti.  Those  trifles  go  deep.  Poets  and  bank 
directors  and  even  film  heroes  copied  the  monocle 
and  the  arrogance  of  the  officers'  corps  in  the 
sweat  of  their  brow.  In  Vienna  the  young  men 
imitated  the  great  actors  and  the  famous  poets, 
in  France  they  copied  the  Parliamentary  phrase- 
makers,  in  Italy  every  callow  youth  tried  to  trill 
Caruso's  aria  from  'La  Tosca'  when  he  wanted 
to  impress  his  sweetheart.  But  in  our  part  of 
the  world  the  type  to  be  copied  was  the  military 
104 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

one.  Kestaurants  were  fashionable  if  officers 
frequented  them.  If  your  butcher's  daughter  got 
married,  he  wanted  at  least  an  officer  of  the 
reserve  at  her  wedding  party.  And  so,  when 
war  actually  came,  the  fashionable  thing  to  do 
was  to  imitate  the  attitude  of  the  military  caste 
toward  it.  It  was  good  form,  whether  you  felt 
it  or  not,  to  welcome  the  war  just  as  the  officers 
did.  And  they  forgot  that  fifty  years  of  laurels 
which  they  had  not  yet  earned  really  changed 
the  status  of  the  officers  who,  in  the  old  days,  did 
deserve  respect  for  the  dangers  they  were  con- 
stantly ready  to  undergo,  the  death  which  they 
constantly  courted.  But  why  do  you  shake  your 
head  so  fiercely?" 

Weiler  almost  hissed.  "God  knows  they're  not 
so  badly  off  to-day.  And  at  least  it's  their  busi- 
ness. No  one  ever  honored  poor  Frobel,  no  one 
ever  imitated  him.  Now  he  has  to  be  quite  as 
ready  to  risk  his  neck  as  any  one.  Even  the 
Kohns  and  the  Finckelsteins,  whom  the  officers 
would  have  nothing  to  do  with  when  everything 
was  safe,  are  now  permitted  to  put  on  the  offi- 
cers' coat  which  was  once  supposed  to  be  too 
good  for  them,  and  are  graciously  allowed  to 
shed  their  blood !  Therefore,  I  say  the  unheard- 
of  thing  is  that  the  officers  are  still  given  special 
privileges,  privileges  which  may  conceivably 
have  been  their  due  at  a  time  when  the  plain 
citizen  was  permitted  to  remain  at  home  on  the 
understanding  that  they  and  they  alone  took  on 
themselves  the  duty  of  protecting  the  state  with 

105 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

their  lives.  But  how  is  it  to-day?  We  are  con- 
scripted, but  they  keep  their  grandeur.  Their 
calling  has  ceased  to  be  one  of  special  danger  and 
therefore  of  special  honor  in  an  age  when  war 
rests  just  as  heavily  on  the  shop  assistant  and 
the  digger  of  ditches." 

The  corporal  nodded  in  agreement  and  laid  his 
heavy  hand  soothingly  on  Weiler's  shoulder.  "In 
fact  far  more  heavily.  The  officer  doesn't  carry 
a  pack  of  eighty  pounds;  he  doesn't  have  to 
endure  the  impudence  of  men  who  might  be  his 
sons.  If  he's  no  longer  young,  he's  at  least  a 
major  and  sits  safely  behind  the  sand-bags  in  the 
well-protected  dugout.  Every  officer  is  at  an 
advantage.  Even  my  wretched  corporal's  stripes 
relieve  me  of  half  the  sorest  burdens.  I  know 
what  it  means  to  be  able  to  rest  five  minutes 
longer,  to  be  able  to  send  some  one  else  on  an 
errand  at  the  end  of  a  grueling  day,  to  dip  my 
head  in  cooling  water  a  little  sooner.  If  you 
hadn't  interrupted  me,  you  would  have  seen  that 
I  hadn't  any  intention  of  defending  the  military 
caste.  No  one  can  deny  that  the  honor  in  which 
they  are  held  among  us  is  the  thoughtless,  un- 
tested survival  of  a  tradition  that  has  long 
ceased  to  have  any  justification.  Therefore  it 
was  their  duty  to  earn  again  and  earn  now  the 
rights  ..." 

Gadsky,  who  had  been  walking  up  and  down 
in  his  turn,  now  stopped  short  and  laughed  out 
of  the  darkness.  "It's  safe  to  say  they  felt  under 
no  such  obligation.  There's  a  dear  little  ensign 
106 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

in  our  company,  a  sort  of  white  blackbird  who 
should  really  have  been  a  painter  but,  being  a 
general's  son,  was  not  permitted  to  choose  an- 
other calling  than  the  army.  I  wish  you  could 
hear  his  stories.  You  speak  of  an  outlived  tradi- 
tion, of  the  officers  earning  their  privileges.  I 
tell  you  those  men  have  a  subtle  contempt  for 
any  one  but  themselves  whatever  his  services  to 
the  state  and  to  mankind  and  think  that  he  ought 
to  be  honored  by  the  privilege  which  conscrip- 
tion brings  him  of  dying  in  their  noble  com- 
pany." 

"And  the  saddest  thing  is,"  the  corporal  said 
triumphantly,  "that  so  many  men  actually  feel 
honored.  Those  are  the  very  people  I  had  in 
mind,  the  men  who,  when  some  one  is  around, 
curse  the  wound  that  takes  them  out  of  the 
battle  and  who  in  August,  1914,  welcomed  the 
war  like  a  fashionable  diversion.  They  are  the 
traitors  who  made  any  opposition  impossible. 
That's  why  I  hate  them.  For  fifty  years  and 
longer  the  common  people  of  the  world  have 
borne  the  burden  and  expected  the  men  of  learn- 
ing and  of  science  to  bear  theirs  too.  And  the 
men  of  thought  and  science  did  nothing  of  the 
kind.  They  knew  the  diplomatic  history  of  their 
times;  they  knew  the  furious  competition  in 
armaments.  What  did  they  do?  But  I  am  not 
concerned  with  the  enemy  countries  now.  They 
must  answer  to  their  own  peoples.  I  attack  our 
own  men  of  thought,  of  light  and  of  leading  who 
permitted  a  great  and  a  good  people  to  become 

107 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

the  involuntary  tool  of  a  statesmanship  and  a 
method  of  international  life  that  is  several  hun- 
dred years  behind  the  times.  It  was  our  business 
to  see  and  warn!  But  no  one  knew  or  no  one 
dared.  And  just  because  of  the  preeminence  of 
the  German  intellectuals  in  the  world  do  I  blame 
them  most  bitterly  for  their  neglect  and  for  their 
acquiescence  in  this  insensate  thing.  And  the 
same  is  true  of  the  socialists  of 'all  countries — • 
the  men  whose  profession  it  was  to  be  in  the 
opposition.  These  same  people  who  shouted 
about  militarism  in  Germany  and  about  the  op- 
pression of  inferior  races  in  England  and  about 
what  not  in  France,  had  forgotten  all  these  fine 
things  when  the  test,  the  great  test,  came !" 

He  had  grown  more  and  more  impassioned 
and  had  given  himself  up  wholly  to  his  righteous 
wrath.  When  no  one  answered  him,  he  spread 
out  his  arms  in  a  gesture  of  resignation.  Then 
he  added:  "I  understand  perfectly  how  one's 
fundamental  decency  rebels  against  the  uni- 
versal cowardice.  Because  the  whole  of  this  so- 
called  great  age  is  in  the  grip  of  a  great  coward- 
ice. So  long  as  the  mortality  of  mutineers  is 
likely  to  be  ninety  per  cent,  in  excess  of  the 
mortality  among  'heroes/  there  will  always, 
naturally,  be  an  excess  of  heroes.  But  whoever 
realizes  that  as  keenly  as  you  do,  ought  to  have 
the  courage  to  face  the  fact  boldly.  The  greatest 
coward  is  surely  he  who  consciously  plays  the 
game  as  the  safest  under  the  circumstances,  al- 
though he  knows  perfectly  well  what  he,  as  a 
108 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

matter  of  the  deepest  reality,  ought  to  do.  The 
worst  cowards  are  the  men  of  compromise  who 
steered  against  the  current  so  long  as  the  stream 
splashed  gently  but  who,  when  it  was  in  spate 
and  produced  whirlpools,  changed  their  course 
with  a  great  display  of  phrases.  They  are  the 
cowards  and  not  the  common  man  who  endured 
everything  as  he  would  endure  hail  or  storms." 
Out  of  the  dusk  came  Gadsky's  voice.  And 
there  was  the  cutting  sharpness  of  an  indignant 
sarcasm  in  it.  "You  are  indeed  right.  To-day 
when  the  wounded  were  unloaded  I  made  some 
observations  again.  Your  dear  common  men 
stood  there  and  their  faces  were  as  glum  as 
though  they  felt  the  wounds  on  their  own  bodies. 
Each  one  would  have  given  the  world  to  be  able 
to  take  to  his  heels.  But  what  would  have  hap- 
pened, do  you  think,  if  some  brave  man  had  pro- 
claimed to  them  with  the  tongue  of  men  and 
angels  all  that  we  hide  and  repress?  These  fine 
fellows  would  have  thrown  themselves  upon  him ; 
they  would  have  obeyed  the  command  to  fetter 
him  and  out  of  the  initiative  of  their  own  feeling 
of  duty  they  would  have  added  a  few  kicks.  You 
reproach  me  because,  as  you  say,  I  have  never 
reflected  on  the  connection  of  things.  I  think  it's 
you  who  have  things  upside  down.  You  take  the 
butcher  for  the  sacrificial  lamb.  Don't  you  know 
that  it  is  this  inert  mass  that  drags  us  down 
like  lead?  These  silent  ones  with  their  accursed 
patience  form  the  stream  that  drags  us  to 
destruction  when  the  flood-gates  are  opened.  It 

109 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

is  we  who  must  be  silent  and  who  must  submit, 
because  this  huge  herd  knows  nothing  but  the 
path  of  its  bell-wethers.  A  man  who  would  have 
tried  to  remain  true  to  himself  that  fatal  August 
would  have  perished  under  the  heels  of  the  mob." 

The  corporal  moved  away  from  the  table,  out 
of  the  light  of  the  lamp  into  the  shadow  and  his 
great  heavy  body  loomed  up  near  Gadsky.  His 
words  were  full  of  wrath.  "And  why  are  these 
people  a  dead  weight?  Did  they  suddenly  submit 
against  their  better  knowledge  and  belief  like 
ourselves?  No!  You  and  I  and  all  our  kind  have 
left  them  to  the  mercy  of  the  state,  to  the  mercy 
of  a  slave-education!  What  have  the  common 
people  heard  in  church  and  school  all  over 
Europe  except  the  blare  of  the  nationalist  and 
the  war-monger?  And  what  have  the  states 
done?  They  have  rewarded  these  shouters  and 
patriotic  teachers  and  have  crushed,  subtly  or 
roughly,  every  one  who  protested.  And  when 
that  happened,  what  did  the  intellectuals  do? 
They  drew  caricatures  of  those  in  power.  They 
jested  cheaply  over  the  phrases  on  which  the 
common  people  were  fed.  But  did  they  ever  go 
to  the  people?  Did  they  ever  arise  freely  against 
the  powerful  organizations  that  taught  Europe 
enemity  and  rivalry  and  chauvinism  and  filled 
men  with  the  fear  and  hate  of  their  neighbors? 
And  now,  now,  you  want  to  blame  the  victims?" 

His  voice  gave  out  for  a  moment.  He  breathed 
deeply  before  he  could  go  on.  "We  were  the 
cowards  and  we  alone.  The  burdens  we  have  to 
110 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

bear  are  our  just  due.  I  am  tempted  to  rejoice 
over  every  one  who  now  groans  under  the  yoke 
which  he  did  nothing  to  lift  so  long  as  it  hurt 
only  the  neck  of  others.  Whoever  had  no  deal- 
ings with  the  people  and  thought  his  light  too 
precious  for  their  eyes — the  artists  and  the 
thinkers  and  the  men  of  letters — is  reaping  his 
reward  now  that  the  helplessness  which  he  per- 
mitted tears  him  along." 

Gadsky  had  sat  down  on  his  bed  and  sup- 
ported his  head  in  his  hands.  But  when  the 
corporal,  with  a  gesture  of  self -contempt,  inter- 
rupted himself,  he  arose  slowly  and  came  for- 
ward. "Well,  we  are  being  punished."  He  said 
it  quietly  and  bent  over  the  lamp  to  light  a  cig- 
arette. His  words  had  sadness  in  them  now  and 
humility.  "You  may  well  be  satisfied.  Whoever 
stood  aside  in  peace  out  of  arrogance  and  indif- 
ference has  the  hardest  lot  to  bear  now.  The 
people  don't  smell  any  better  in  war.  But 
whether  they  are  really  so  entirely  innocent  of 
all  things  I  still  doubt.  Perhaps  it  was  more  so 
in  Germany  than  in  other  countries.  But  I  am 
not  so  sure.  The  fact  is  that  the  great  mass  is 
everywhere  instinctively  on  the  side  of  power 
and  of  those  in  power.  There  is  little  general 
love  for  the  martyr,  for  opposition.  The  people 
admire  the  show  and  fact  of  power  and  awaken 
but  slowly  to  the  truth  that  they  suffer  from  it. 
Usually  they  glory  in  it  as  if  it  belonged  to  them. 
If  we  were  cowards  you  must  grant,  at  least, 

111 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

that  we   received  little   encouragement   to   be 
brave." 

The  corporal  was  too  weary  to  take  up  the 
challenge  again.  He  shrugged  his  shoulders.  "I 
didn't  say  it  would  have  been  easy."  A  moment 
later  he  jumped  up.  "For  heaven's  sake!  It's 
past  eight  o'clock.  I  must  be  off!"  And  as  he 
gathered  up  his  pipe  and  tobacco  pouch  and  hur- 
ried to  where  his  greatcoat  was  spread  over  the 
forms,  he  said  with  a  strangely  humble  regret, 
half  jesting  and  half  in  bitter  earnest :  "I  must 
say  that  I  haven't  shown  myself  very  grateful 
for  your  hospitality.  First  I  ate  up  your  food 
and  then  I  filled  you  up  with  superfluous  truths, 
which  each  might  better  keep  to  himself.  Don't 
resent  it,  please.  It's  my  own  loss  too.  My  two 
hours  of  respite  are  over  and  instead  of  resting, 
I've  talked  myself  hoarse.  But  that's  so  human. 
Our  disgust  over  the  great  murder  makes  us  fight 
our  real  friends  in  the  intervals."  He  turned  to 
thank  Weiler  who  was  holding  his  coat  for  him. 
When  he  saw  the  poet's  helpless  sadness  and  the 
great,  anguished  questions  in  his  eyes,  the  cor- 
poral fell  silent.  For  a  minute  he  busied  himself 
with  his  glove.  Then  he  turned  and,  placing  his 
large  hands  tenderly  on  the  other's  fragile  shoul- 
ders, looked  ruefully  into  the  eyes  that  met  his. 
"I  hope  you're  not  really  taking  my  chatter  to 
heart.  A  good  deal  of  it  is  nonsense.  At  least, 
that's  all  past  and  gone.  The  main  thing  is  to 
get  out  of  it  all  safely.  There  will  be  something 
worth  doing  for  each  one  of  us  afterwards." 
112 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

The  spectacle  moved  Gadsky.  It  was  curious 
to  see  this  giant  with  his  uncouth  limbs  bending 
over  Weiler.  Who  would  have  suspected  this 
hidden  tenderness  in  him?  His  rough  and  almost 
brutal  voice  had  a  deep  mildness  now  and  one 
felt  that  he  hated  himself  at  this  moment  for 
every  trace  that  his  words  had  left  in  Weiler's 
defenseless  soul. 

Finally  he  tore  himself  away  and  held  out  his 
hand  to  Gadsky.  Then  the  latter  saw  that  it  was 
the  corporal  who  in  his  regret  and  sorrow  needed 
consolation  now.  He  took  his  hand  and  laughed. 
"Don't  imagine  that  without  your  kind  help  we 
wouldn't  have  argued  just  the  same.  We  always 
do,  you  know.  And  we're  grateful  for  it.  It 
wouldn't  be  endurable  without  that  relief.  In 
your  absence  we  might  have  taken  different 
sides,  but  the  questions  at  issue  would  have  been 
the  same.  It  is  so  everywhere.  You'll  forgive  me 
for  saying  that  you  neither  invented  them  nor 
brought  them  with  you.  On  the  contrary.  You 
were  a  reliable  listener,  and  that's  about  the 
greatest  service  that  one  man  can  render  another 
out  here." 

A  great  change  came  over  the  face  of  the  cor- 
poral. He  stood  still  in  all  his  ruggedness  for  a 
space.  Then  he  threw  his  arms  out  in  a  great 
gesture  of  lamentation  and  the  speech  that  came 
from  him  was  in  a  hollow  whisper,  as  though  he 
were  revealing  a  great  secret. 

"It  is  so  everywhere.  Men  sit  together  and 
speak  as  we  have  spoken  to-night.  In  every 

113 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

trench,  in  every  hospital  garden,  in  the  dark  cor- 
ridors of  barracks — everywhere  they  crouch  and 
put  their  heads  together  and  speak  of  the  fearful 
consequences  of  the  victory  they  are  helping  to 
win.  When  at  night  I  roll  myself  in  my  coat  and 
put  my  ear  to  the  earth  I  seem  to  hear  all  those 
voices.  I  hear  them  argue  and  rebel  as  we  did 
to-night.  And  when  morning  comes  they  march 
by  me  unafraid,  their  rifles  in  their  hands.  Not 
one  recoils  at  the  imminence  of  death;  not  one 
dares  to  speak  openly.  At  the  word  of  command 
they  fight  like  tigers.  Is  that  not  strange  and 
unthinkable?  And  many  such  lie  even  now  in  the 
great  graves.  And  I  tell  you  that  one  could  find 
whole  divisions  at  the  front  composed  of  men 
who  think  exactly  as  we  do,  and  fear  nothing  as 
they  fear  the  triumph  of  the  forces  that  victory 
would  unleash.  There  are  whole-souled  men 
among  them,  free  minds  whom  nothing  could 
subdue  in  peace,  who  resented  all  pressure  and 
who  now  give  their  blood  for  the  prison  that  is 
to  be  built  about  them.  Never  was  there  such 
a  combat!  Men  have  died  for  a  conviction,  for 
their  freedom  or  for  booty.  But  never  except  in 
this  war  have  men  fought  for  a  victory  which 
they  feared." 

He  still  stood  with  his  arms  outstretched.  His 
eyes  wandered  from  one  to  the  other  of  the  pallid 
faces  beside  him.  When  no  answer  came  to  him 
his  long  arms  fell  to  his  side  and  from  his  great 
chest  there  came  a  cry  of  wild  prophecy. 

"God  help  us  if  we  win !  And  I  fear  that  we 
114 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

shall!  God  help  the  victors  whoever  they  be! 
For  their  rage  and  cruelty  in  war  will  be  as 
nothing  to  the  rage  and  cruelty  and  monstrous 
tyranny  with  which  they  will  turn  upon  their 
own  people.  The  victorious  army — whichever  it 
is — is  forging  the  chains  that  will  bite  into  its 
flesh  when  the  victory  is  won.  For  the  victors 
will  believe  that  their  victory  has  justified  their 
deeds  and  will  drag  their  peoples  at  their  chariot 
wheels  through  the  very  dust !" 

His  stone-gray  forehead  had  flamed  and  his 
whole  body  seemed  to  palpitate  with  inner  fire. 

Gadsky  and  Weiler  dared  not  look  up.  The 
whole  large  room  seemed  to  vibrate  with  the 
man's  prophetic  rage  and  grief  and  despair.  In 
vain  they  sought  for  some  words  to  soothe  him. 
And  it  was  with  something  like  relief  that  they 
saw  him  at  last  turn  to  go.  At  the  open  door  he 
looked  at  them  once  more  and  a  deep  irony  dis- 
torted his  large  features.  He  saluted  and  called 
out:  "Good  luck  and  victory,  then — provided 
our  principles  be  remembered !" 

His  irony  fell  into  the  room  like  a  heavy  stone. 
Then  they  saw  him  melt  into  the  darkness  which 
hung  like  a  black  curtain  across  the  open  door. 

When,  after  a  long  search,  he  had  found  his 
driver  and  horses  and  helped  hitch  them  on  the 
great  square,  he  saw  that  the  battalion  was  as- 
sembling. 

Loiterers  hastened  past  him,  gasping  under 
the  heavy  packs  which  gave  their  silhouettes  a 

115 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

grotesque  outline  in  the  dim  light.  There  was  a 
crunching  and  rattling  as  one  straggler  after 
another  joined  the  long,  black,  sinuous  line  of 
men  that  was  lost  in  the  darkness  at  both  ends. 

Just  as  the  driver  was  climbing  on  the  box, 
the  commanding  officer's  voice  rang  out  acridly 
and  the  long  line  grew  rigid.  Now  an  oppressive 
silence  lay  over  the  square,  a  convulsive  silence 
into  which  the  loud  words  of  an  invisible  small 
group,  somewhere  near  the  center  of  the  square, 
rose  like  a  challenge. 

A  flash-light  flamed  up,  held  by  an  arm  that 
showed  in  the  small  cone  of  light,  and  the  offi- 
cer's voice  threw  name  after  name  against  that 
line  of  men. 

The  corporal  stood  on  his  wagon  and  grasped 
the  driver's  hand.  "Wait !"  he  said  and  listened 
tensely. 

He  saw  a  strange  spectacle.  To  prevent  one 
man's  answering  the  roll-call  for  another  beside 
himself,  the  order  had  been  given  that  as  each 
name  was  called  the  man  in  question  should 
light  up  his  face  with  his  own  flash-light  for 
identification.  And  so  the  little  flames  danced 
like  will-o'-the-wisps  about  the  square  and  each 
time  lifted  out  of  the  darkness  one  ghostly  head 
and  face  that  was  immediately  resubmerged  in 
the  black  air. 

The  driver  groaned,  so  heavily  was  the  cor- 
poral leaning  on  him.  A  name  was  called :  "Fro- 
bel."  The  corporal  drew  himself  up,  but  the 
man's  face  had  melted  back  into  the  darkness 
116 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

before  he  could  see  it.  But  the  word  "here"  had 
sounded  as  firm  and  sure  as  that  uttered  by  the 
other  voices.  It  was  so  with  Gadsky,  too.  And 
then  there  followed  great  numbers  of  indifferent 
names  and  the  driver  was  about  to  turn  around 
with  a  question  on  his  lips.  At  that  moment 
Weiler's  face  flamed  up  for  a  moment.  It  seemed 
near  enough  to  grasp,  though  wreathed  by  thick 
shadows  and  half  hidden  by  the  trench-helmet. 
And  his  voice  uttered  the  single  necessary  word 
in  a  strange,  hard  fashion  with  all  the  conven- 
tional military  coldness  and  assurance. 

The  corporal  nodded  to  the  driver  and  the 
wagon  hastened  on.  Then  he  threw  himself  back 
on  the  moist  straw  that  still  held  the  odor  of 
congealed  blood,  and  with  a  wild  curse  raised 
his  gnarled  fists  to  the  starry  heaven  whose  glit- 
ter sank  upon  him  like  the  glass  wall  of  a  gigan- 
tic fly-trap. 


117 


Ill 

REAR    GUARD 


Ill 

BEAR    GUARD 

IT  was  the  little  tailor  of  the  first  squad,  the 
"vaudeville  man"  as  he  was  known  on  ac- 
count of  his  curved  nose  and  his  bandy  legs, 
whose  suspicions  were  aroused  first.  At  noon  he 
had  been  commanded  to  help  a  wounded  man  to 
the  nearest  hospital  station.  He  did  not  come 
back  until  night  because  the  station  had  van- 
ished and  he  had  had  to  entrust  his  utterly  ex- 
hausted comrade  to  an  ammunition  truck.  More 
than  that  he  would  not  say,  so  long  as  a  crowd 
of  the  curious  surrounded  him.  But  when,  sev- 
eral minutes  later,  he  met  Gadsky  in  the  commu- 
nication trench,  he  first  looked  around  rapidly 
and  then,  wildly  gesticulating,  attacked  him 
with  a  flood  of  alarming  news. 

Where  had  the  hospital  station  gone  to?  Why 
had  it  been  withdrawn  further  to  the  rear?  Why 
were  all  the  roads  full  of  columns  of  men  march- 
ing rearward,  while  only  an  isolated  motor- 
cyclist whirred  toward  the  front  now  and  then? 
And  why,  above  all,  was  the  park  of  the  chateau 
yonder  deserted  as  a  graveyard  at  midnight, 
when  usually  it  swarmed  with  officers  and  theft 
ordinances?  Why  was  that,  he  wanted  to  know? 

121 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

Wasn't  it  evident  that  the  thin  chain  of  out- 
posts that  still  occupied  the  front  trenches  had 
been  calmly  dedicated  to  the  ravens?  "Bear 
guard,  I  tell  you,  that's  what  we  are.  We're  like 
the  remnants  a  man  leaves  on  his  shelves  for  the 
creditors  after  a  dishonest  failure.  You'll  see 
that  I'm  right.  This  time  to-morrow  we'll  be 
done  for!  Our  respite  ends  when  the  fog  lifts. 
When  the  curtain  goes  up  our  little  performance 
will  be  over.  Mark  my  words !" 

The  thin,  hollow-cheeked  Jew  with  his  cun- 
ning face  and  his  frightened,  intelligent  eyes  had 
said  all  this  as  if  it  were  a  lesson  he  had  learned. 
In  his  zeal  of  communication  he  had  backed  Gad- 
sky  to  a  corner  of  the  trench.  His  thin  arms 
fluttered  like  the  wings  of  a  bat.  It  looked  from 
afar  as  if  he  wanted  to  attack  Gadsky.  The 
latter's  smile  of  superior  incredulity  increased 
his  desperation.  He  found  more  and  more  proofs 
for  his  contention  and  finally  released  his  victim 
with  a  sharp :  "Very  well.  You'll  see !" 

Gadsky  had  at  first  dismissed  the  lurid  story 
with  a  shrug.  He  liked  the  queer  little  man  well. 
He  thought  it  quite  comprehensible  that  a  timid 
man  who  had  plied  the  yard-stick  all  his  life 
should  lose  his  judgment  in  this  atmosphere  of 
danger  and  death.  It  was  not  until  later  when, 
in  spite  of  the  falling  dark,  the  service  of  supply 
men  'did  not  appear  with  supper  and  the  com- 
mand was  given  to  break  into  the  iron  ration, 
that  the  tailor's  prophecies  came  back  into  his 
mind.  Hi*  superior  smile  faded  into  a  mere  un- 
122 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

willing  glint  of  teeth  when  the  "vaudeville  man" 
slipped  by  him,  drenched  with  misery  and  said: 
"Well,  what  did  I  tell  you?" 

He  tried  to  shake  off  his  discomfort  in  the 
dugout  where  some  one's  birthday  was  being  cele- 
brated and  even  notorious  misers  contributed 
their  share.  But  the  merriment  and  the  jests 
grew  intolerable  to  him.  He  fled  from  all  that 
and  also  from  the  deep  sighs  and  the  melancholy 
nods  of  the  tailor  who  stood  against  the  wall  like 
an  animated  message  of  doom.  He  returned  to 
the  trench  and  in  a  corner  summoned  all  his  will 
power  to  master  his  ridiculous  nervousness.  He 
was  not  going  to  let  that  shaking,  little  coward 
with  his  silly  chatter  influence  his  mood. 

But  now  the  cinematograph  in  his  mind  had 
been  set  in  motion  and  his  throbbing  pulses 
drove  armies  of  mad  images  through  it.  He  saw 
all  phases  of  a  desperate  hand-to-hand  encoun- 
ter. He  saw  himself  captured;  saw  himself 
wounded  and  above  him  the  white-eyed  Algerian 
negro  troops  warming  their  cold  fingers  in  his 
blood.  The  stories  that  he  had  affected  to  despise 
became  terribly  concrete  now  and  his  reason  was 
powerless  against  his  flogged  senses. 

It  was  his  particular  misfortune  to  be  on 
sentry  duty  that  night,  just  at  midnight.  And 
in  the  foremost  piece  of  trench,  between  friend 
and  foe,  isolated  in  the  impenetrable  darkness,, 
he  succumbed  utterly  to  his  fevered  imagination. 

The  rain  fell  quite  softly,  sickered  with  a  mo- 
notonous whisper  into  the  upturned  earth,  and 

123 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

dripped  on  his  helmet  with  a  maddening  reg- 
ularity that  tugged  at  his  nerves.  There  was 
about  him  an  uninterrupted  concert  of  equivocal 
noises  which  always  forced  him  to  listen  tensely, 
until  every  murmuring  and  thumping  and  rat- 
tling caused  the  shadows  of  imminent  danger  to 
arise  before  him.  The  fog  did  its  share.  Over 
every  suspicious  shadow  it  threw  a  veil  and  a 
second  later  fluttered  its  gray  streamers  from 
the  posts  of  the  wire  entanglements,  as  though 
it  were  signaling  to  the  enemy  beyond.  In  vain 
did  Gadsky  seek  to  liberate  his  mind  from  these 
shadowy  goings  on.  The  loose  streamers  sank 
down,  became  gray  masses  that  rolled  forward 
up  to  his  loop-hole,  so  that  at  moments  his  blood 
threatened  to  congeal.  His  own  breath  coming 
from  above  penetrated  into  the  trench  and,  with 
his  convulsive  fingers  on  the  trigger,  he  would 
seem  to  see  again  and  again  the  gleaming  of  a 
strange  eye  in  front  of  his  .  .  . 

The  illuminated  dial  on  his  wrist-watch 
showed  that  it  was  half  past  twelve.  Only  half 
of  this  dreadful  night  was  over.  Suddenly  'the 
fog,  caught  by  a  gust  of  wind,  lifted  and  showed 
the  piece  of  No  Man's  Land  before  him  like  an 
empty  stage.  The  emergence  of  the  well-known 
posts  and  hillocks  served  to  quiet  his  nerves.  The 
hammering  in  his  temples  ceased  and  he  looked 
about  him  like  one  who  after  a  long  climb  has 
sight  of  a  familiar  valley.  In  many  hours  of 
loneliness  and  danger,  pressed  close  against  the 
breastworks,  he  had  impressed  upon  his  mind 
124 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

every  foot  of  ground,  every  inch  of  wire.  He 
knew  this  bit  of  earth  by  heart  as  he  had  known 
some  piece  of  music  he  was  going  to  play  pub- 
licly. He  could  close  his  eyes  and  see  every  detail 
— every  white  bit  of  stone,  every  rag  of  a  uni- 
form ;  he  had  accustomed  himself  to  this  God  for- 
saken spot  as  one  accustoms  oneself  to  some 
loved  implement  or  the  view  of  one's  neighbor's 
garden  from  a  study  window.  He  knew  he  would 
be  more  unhappy  if  he  were  ordered  to  some 
other  point  of  the  system  of  trenches  and  smiled 
sadly  at  the  humility  of  heart  which  attached  it» 
instinct  for  home  to  pieces  of  cadaver  and  to  shell 
holes. 

With  a  smoother  forehead  he  now  sent  his 
glances  over  the  familiar  points  and  gazed,  at 
last,  at  the  small,  black  island  which  lay  like 
a  puddle  between  the  tall  posts  of  the  wire-en- 
tanglements. It  was  "the  Frenchman,"  a  poor 
devil  who,  when  these  trenches  had  been  taken 
by  the  Germans,  had  been  singled  out  from  his 
fleeing  comrades  by  a  last,  stupid  bullet  and  had 
been  hurled  into  the  wires  of  the  French  en- 
tanglement. For  a  long  time  he  had  swung  there 
like  a  tight-rope  walker,  bent  over  backwards  in 
the  shape  of  a  horseshoe  and  swinging  lightly 
up  and  down  whenever  a  projectile  had  landed 
near  him.  A  well  aimed  shell  had  finally  lib- 
erated him  from  the  wires  between  heaven  and 
earth  and  for  a  long  time  now  he  had  been  lying 
on  the  ground,  losing  his  clothes,  putrifying 
away,  and  even  his  mere  skeleton  existence  was 

125 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

fast  coming  to  an  end.  At  night  he  now  seemed 
merely  a  little  heap  of  earth.  By  day  it  had  the 
appearance,  at  a  distance,  as  though  he  were  cut 
in  half,  with  the  greater  part  of  his  body  under 
the  surface  of  the  earth.  Whoever  saw  him  for 
the  first  time  thought  that  he  lay  in  a  hollow. 
Eeally  the  ground  under  him  was  as  level  as  a 
table.  One  more  change  of  sentries  and  he  would 
cease  to  be  useful  as  a  point  of  orientation  and 
the  orders  and  announcements  that  had  long  con- 
tained such  stereotyped  phrases  as:  "To  the 
right  of  the  Frenchman,"  would  have  to  change 
their  wording. 

So  many  weeks  had  passed  since  poor  Weiler 
was  gone !  .  .  .  Gadsky  measured  the  tiny  eleva- 
tion, which  was  all  that  remained  of  what  had 
once  been  a  man's  body,  and  counted  up  the  weeks 
since  Weiler's  departure,  the  weeks  which  he  had 
passed  in  the  outmost  trench.  It  was  strange 
how  in  the  present  each  holir  seemed  to  be  an 
eternity,  yet  in  memory  the  experiences  of  this 
life  seemed  to  pass  in  such  close  succession  as 
though  the  terrible  intervals  of  inactivity  and 
dull  misery  had  never  been,  or  as  if  they  had 
vanished  like  the  tide  which  also  leaves  as  visible 
witnesses  only  the  wrecks  which  it  has  washed 
ashore.  Nothing,  absolutely  nothing,  had  hap- 
pened since  that  storm  attack  on  the  French 
position,  since  that  frightful  slaughter  which 
Weiler,  driven  on  by  his  captain,  had  had  to 
share,  reeling  and  with  half -maddened  eyes.  And 
then,  a  few  hours  later,  the  sentinels  had  brought 
126 


THE  JUDGMENT  OP  PEACE 

him  back — a  madman,  shaken  by  horror  as 
though  the  dead  Frenchman  was  at  his  heelg. 

Gadsky  had  a  vivid  memory  of  every  word 
that  his  friend  had  spoken,  and  also  of  his 
cruelly  distorted  face.  They  had  lashed  him  to 
a  stretcher  and  kept  him  there  until  he  could  be 
carried  to  the  rear  under  cover  of  darkness.  Even 
now,  after  so  many  weeks,  it  was  unendurably 
hard  to  think  of  the  transformation  of  this  ten- 
der and  gad  and  lovely  soul  into  a  raving  maniac 
whose  long  howls  could  be  heard  many  minutes 
after  the  stretcher-bearers  had  gone  with  him. 
He  had  broken  down  under  the  too  heavy  burden 
of  his  fate  and  what  they  carried  away  was  only 
the  ruins  of  his  being — only  an  exanimate  body 
alive  merely  because  the  blood  coursed  through 
its  veins.  Even  the  preparations  for  the  attack 
had  exceeded  his  strength.  Then  came  the  fear- 
ful storming  forward  and  the  unspeakable  bar- 
barism of  a  hand-to-hand  encounter.  Finally, 
before  his  nerves  had  had  a  chance  to  recover,  he 
had  been  ordered  on  sentinel  duty  only  a  few  feet 
away  from  the  body  that  hung  in  the  wires  like 
a  caught  insect,  and,  for  all  that  any  one  knew, 
might  still  have  been  quivering  and  twitching 
with  life  ... 

"Courage  is  a  lack  of  imagination,"  Weiler 
had  once  declared.  And  in  truth,  to  his  fever- 
ishly active  imagination,  to  his  morbidly  ex- 
quisite sensibility  which  felt  the  pains  of  others 
within  its  own  innermost  being,  this  sight  had 
been  far  more  insufferable  than  it  would  have 

127 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

been  to  some  blunt  fellow  whose  inner  vision  did 
not  exceed  his  physical  sight  .  .  .  And  many 
other  sayings  of  his  which  they  had  smiled  at 
once  upon  a  time  had  proven  themselves  to  be 
deeply  true.  How  queer,  for  instance,  he  had 
once  thought  another  assertion  of  Weiler's, 
namely,  that  no  one's  imagination  is  capable  of 
envisaging  his  own  death,  that  the  calmness  with 
which  men  spoke  of  their  own  extinction  was 
sheer  hypocrisy,  because  in  the  back  of  his  mind 
each  one  held  fast  to  the  conviction  that  he  him- 
self would  not  die  and  mentioned  the  possibility 
of  it  only  out  of  tactfulness  toward  others.  Fool- 
ish as  that  had  once  seemed,  and  much  as  he  had 
mocked  at  it,  he  was  bound  to  confess  now  that 
the  observation  was  true.  In  moments  of  the 
highest  danger,  before  that  great  attack,  for  in- 
stance, a  similar  feeling  had  involuntarily  arisen 
in  him.  He,  too,  could  not  imagine  the  dawn 
arising  upon  a  dead  George  Gadsky  who  might 
be,  like  that  poor  Frenchman,  only  a  little  heap 
of  decay. 

But  suppose  to-morrow  morning  .  .  .  ?  Sup- 
pose the  little  tailor  was  right ! 

He  drew  himself  up  and  looked  at  his  watch 
again.  Was  this  hour  never  going  to  end?  The 
sweat  gathered  on  his  forehead;  he  pushed  his 
trench-helmet  far  back  and  held  his  face  into  the 
cooling  wind  which  was  just  gathering  force  ancl 
tearing  the  fog  as  with  angry  fingers.  The  rain 
flowed  from  the  rim  of  his  helmet  down  his  back ; 
he  didn't  notice  it.  His  eyes  were  again  fastened 
128 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

on  the  dead  Frenchman  who  seemed  to  play  hide 
and  seek  with  him,  drawing  up  the  fog  about  him 
like  a  sheet  and  peering  forth  again.  For  him, 
at  least,  the  ultimate  agony  was  over!  Had  he 
been  young,  Gadsky  wondered,  when  the  last 
bullet  hit  him?  Probably.  They  had  all  been 
very  youthful  and  had  worn  gallant  little  mus- 
taches. He  remembered  one  in  especial  .  .  . 
But  no !  He  forced  himself  not  to  think.  For  it 
had  been  murder,  murder — all  the  generals  and 
all  the  cunning  men  of  the  whole  world  notwith- 
standing. And  involuntarily  he  held  his  gun  in 
a  slacker  grasp  as  though  his  fingers  were  nause- 
ated at  the  touch  of  each  other. 

That  poor  fellow  in  front  there  was,  he 
thanked  God,  on  some  one  else's  conscience.  The 
sergeant  of  the  second  squad  was  probably  the 
sender  of  that  final  bullet.  And  now  he  lay  there, 
on  this  sick  earth,  which  the  projectiles  of  both 
armies  had  tormented  and  disfigured  and  sown 
with  scars.  And  while  he  putrefied  here  into  an 
unspeakable  liquid,  there  was  somewhere  prob- 
ably a  fragrant,  exquisite  little  wife  who  was 
still  excited  at  each  coming  of  the  postman  and 
reverently  kept  his  place  on  the  broad  French 
marriage  bed.  .  .  . 

Gadsky  closed  his  eyes  for  a  moment.  From 
afar  there  seemed  to  come  to  him  the  fragrance 
of  all  tender  memories,  the  infinitely  pathetic 
beauty  of  life,  as  though  from  that  imagined  bed 
a  perfume  had  floated  to  him  as  to  a  friend. 

Wasn't  it  enough  to  drive  one  mad?  To  await 

129 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

one's  end  now  at  the  very  height  of  one's  vital 
powers?  To  be  shot  or  stabbed  like  a  mad  dog  in 
the  middle  of  the  road?  Was  he  not  filled  to  the 
brim  with  hope  and  strength  and  high  possibili- 
ties? And  he  was  asked  to  give  up,  perhaps, 
thirty  noble  years  of  love  and  art  and  all  the 
glories  of  the  earth! 

Why? 

And  suddenly  Weiler  appeared  before  him 
again — Weiler  whom  the  whole  battalion  had 
regretted  with  tears  in  their  eyes.  Now  he  lay 
in  a  white  bed  behind  a  wall  of  glass  that  pro- 
tected him  from  wind  and  rain,  and  to-morrow 
he  would  see  the  sun  arise  over  the  roofs  of  the 
city  and  to-morrow  night  he  would  see  the  sun 
set  again.  Mad  or  not — he  was  alive.  And  would 
go  on  living.  He  would  see  the  loveliness  of 
women  and  perhaps  hear  the  singing  of  his  blood 
again  some  day.  And  next  he  seemed  to  see  at 
his  side  the  wounded  man  whom  the  tailor  had 
conducted  to  the  rear  to-day.  He  saw  him  walk 
in  a  blossoming  hospital  garden  and  look 
through  the  lilac  bushes  toward  the  street  and 
hear  the  rattle  of  the  trams.  And  he  saw  women 
in  bright  summer  dresses  look  into  the  garden  at 
the  heroes  there.  That  same  man  who  this  morn- 
ing had  stood  here  pale  and  gnashing  his 
teeth  .  .  . 

The  man  who  would  else,  here  with  the  others, 
have  .  .  . 

And  why? 

Because  a  stupid  piece  of  iron  had  fallen  some 
130 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

paces  nearer  to  the  right  than  was  expected  and 
had  torn  into  that  man's  flesh  his  permit  to  go 
back  into  life  .  .  .  No,  that  wasn't  possible! 
That  was  .  .  .  The  devil  take  these  ghosts! 
George  Gadsky,  the  darling  of  destiny,  was  in 
danger  of  imitating  the  shabby  little  schoolmas- 
ter Frobel.  Had  he  not  volunteered?  And  now 
he  grieved  like  any  philistine  who  knows  no  dif- 
ference between  living  and  breathing.  One 
should,  indeed,  be  sorry  for  Frobel.  He  had 
nothing  but  misfortune  before  the  eyes  of  his 
mind,  trembled  for  his  life  constantly,  and  had 
no  trust  in  his  star.  But  he,  George  Gadsky,  was 
sinning  against  his  destiny,  challenging  the  gods 
with  his  lack  of  faith  .  .  . 

He  clenched  his  fist  and  determined  to  pass 
the  fifteen  minutes  which  must  elapse  before  he 
would  be  relieved  in  brighter  thoughts  and  not 
to  be  overcome  by  the  shadows  again.  If  only  it 
had  not  been  for  the  fog.  It  lay  before  one's  eyes 
and  on  one's  chest  and  rolled  heavy,  stone  gray 
balls  on  the  cratered  field,  covering  everything 
that  might  distract  one's  thoughts.  It  was  diffi- 
cult, thus  isolated,  not  to  fall  into  brooding  and 
to  suck  oneself  full  of  misery.  A  vigorous  enemy 
fire  was  easier  to  bear ;  at  least  it  kept  the  senses 
awake  and  the  muscles  taut.  When  the  shells 
came  whistling  along  and,  after  each  explosion, 
one's  life  seemed  to  blossom  anew  because  one 
lived,  when  one  might  so  easily  have  been  dead — 
in  the  midst  of  that  sharp  struggle  and  gamble 
for  existence  one  had,  at  least,  no  chance  to 

131 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

reflect.  And  above  it  all  hovered  the  prospect  of 
some  days  in  the  rear  positions,  and  even  an  hour 
in  the  dugout,  when  measured  by  the  whistling 
breath  of  the  grenades,  seemed  to  promise  an 
eternity  of  shelter.  And  this  tension  was  re- 
peated from  minute  to  minute ;  it  filled  ten  thou- 
sand with  a  consuming  ache  for  life ;  it  flamed  up 
intolerably  when  a  projectile  curved  in  the 
empty  sky;  it  smoldered  behind  the  front  in  the 
daily  hope  for  the  miracle  of  peace  before  a  new 
march  to  the  firing-line. 

Gadsky's  heart  grew  warm  when  he  thought 
of  this  storm  of  fevered  pulses,  of  this  gigantic 
hope  that  held  millions  breathless. 

It  was  as  though  the  great  clock  of  life  were 
hung  visibly  before  men's  faces.  They  were  all 
united  in  their  vigil.  Those  in  front  clung  to 
the  second  hand  whose  movements  were  marked 
by  the  soaring  explosions  of  death ;  those  behind 
them  counted  the  hours,  and  far  behind  these 
surged  the  sea  of  those  whom  every  day  brought 
nearer  to  the  great  peril.  From  each  of  a  million 
hearts  came  this  great  stream  of  hope ;  it  rose  to 
an  incredible  breadth  and  depth  and  beat  against 
the  thresholds  of  those  mighty  ones  who  were 
lords  of  so  much  life  in  dread. 

And  did  those  mighty  ones  remain  quite  calm? 
.  .  .  Did  they  not  see  that  the  great  stream  was 
rising  to  their  feet,  to  their  hearts?  .  .  .  Was  it 
possible? 

He  listened.  The  wind  wailed  in  the  telegraph 
wires ;  the  streamers  of  the  fog  were  like  widow's 
132 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

weeds;  and  out  of  the  flood  of  beseeching  faces 
that  assailed  him  there  arose  the  careworn  face 
of  his  sister.  She  was  guarding  her  only  child,  a 
boy  of  seventeen.  She  had  been  as  glad  to  see  her 
brother  go  as  if  she  felt  it  was  giving  the  child 
a  longer  respite.  Oh,  how  full  of  dread  were  the 
mothers  .  .  .  the  mothers  .  .  .  Many  who  at 
the  beginning  of  the  war  had  blessed  the  youth 
of  their  sons  grasped  the  paper  to-day  in  that 
same  wild  and  despairing  hope  and  cursed  the 
vigor  of  their  growing  lads.  A  voice  in  them 
called  louder  and  louder  for  peace;  their  hearts 
clung  ever  more  desperately  to  this  one  hope — 
until  at  last  the  fatal  hour  came  and  a  child  went 
from  them  and  soon  returned  with  the  pride  of 
youth  still  in  its  eyes  but  in  its  hand  the  terrible 
implement  that  is  lord  of  life  and  death.  And 
while  the  son  grew  harder  and  more  estranged 
from  day  to  day  and  was  taught  the  trade  of  mur- 
der, of  shooting  and  of  stabbing  other  mothers' 
sons  who  were  far  away  and  who  were  learning 
to  do  the  same — while  all  this  happened,  the  poor 
mother  held  to  her  wild  heart  the  long  weeks  of 
training  and  cried,  cried,  cried  for  peace!  How 
could  the  masters  fail  to  hear?  The  great  cry 
went  up  from  wherever  boys  were  growing  to 
manhood,  from  the  hospitals  where  wounds 
healed  so  terribly  soon,  from  barracks  where 
bearded  men  knelt  in  their  beds  like  little  chil- 
dren, from  all  the  ends  of  the  tormented  earth 
arose  that  cry.  .  .  .  Were  the  masters  deaf? 
Gadsky  recalled  the  everlasting  questions  and 

133 


THE  JUDGMENT  OP  PEACE 

arguments  of  Frobel  in  the  barracks ;  the  man's 
rigid  belief  that  the  war  would  end  before  their 
battalion  was  summoned  to  the  front.  A  mad, 
dull  rage  arose  in  him  at  the  thought  that  this 
same  hope  was  still  keeping  weary  men  from 
sleep  on  their  military  cots,  while  the  dreadful 
wheel  was  still  turning.  .  .  .  How  long  would 
the  millions  still  be  pushed  nearer  the  abyss  with 
each  turn  of  the  wheel,  and  sink  over  the  edge 
in  great  crowds  only  because  the  masters  of  this 
pitiless  mechanism  held  peace  in  their  closed 
hands  and  would  not,  would  not  open  them! 

He  bit  his  teeth  together.  He  could  hardly 
restrain  the  great  hatred  that  arose  within  him. 
The  dark  feeling  that  he  had  had  this  precise 
mental  experience  before  in  life  arose  to  trouble 
him.  He  turned  over  memory  after  memory  until 
suddenly  the  vision  he  was  seeking  stood  before 
him,  to  the  minutest  details  in  the  glare  of  a 
strange  sun.  It  had  happened  during  his  great 
tour  through  the  United  States.  How  long  ago 
was  that?  Five  years?  No,  it  was  only  four! 
And  yet  it  seemed  to  beckon  to  him  as  from  a 
blessed  and  infinitely  far  past — a  millennium  of 
rugs  and  bath-tubs  half  incredible  to  the  poor 
cave-dweller  of  to-day,  that  servant  of  servants 
who  scarcely  dared  recognize  his  identity  with 
the  George  Gadsky  who  had  once  had  a  dream 
that  was  so  like  reality  of  glittering  concert-halls 
and  of  people  stretching  out  their  arms  after 
him  as  after  the  stars.  .  .  . 

In  those  far  days  he  had  had  the  experience 
134 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

that  he  now  recalled.  It  had  been  on  a  brilliant 
spring  morning  in  Chicago.  From  his  great 
house,  guarded  like  a  sanctuary  by  exotic  trees, 
his  host,  a  fat  little  Yankee  with  thick  fingers 
and  a  double  chin  for  whose  business  thirteen 
hundred  sheep  were  slaughtered  daily,  and  who, 
nevertheless,  was  capable  of  a  moisture  in  his 
eyes  at  a  Beethoven  sonata — this  man  had  driven 
him  over  to  his  kingdom.  The  extensive  factory 
buildings  appeared  before  Gadsky's  mind  clear- 
ly. He  saw  again  the  workers'  cottages,  the  long, 
flat  store-houses,  and  beyond  the  endless  expanse 
of  the  prairie  which  seemed  to  be  filled  to  the 
very  horizon  with  the  victims  of  the  coming 
slaughter.  And  it  seemed  to  him  that  he  could 
still  smell  the  sour  odor  of  congealed  blood  and, 
exactly  as  on  that  day,  a  nausea  threatened  to 
choke  him,  a  nausea  which  had  increased  at  the 
sight  of  the  blood-spattered  men  who,  with  the 
regularity  of  machines,  dipped  their  glittering 
knives  into  the  living  animals  which  were  pro- 
pelled toward  them  and  then  swung  away  by  the 
same  mechanism  and,  while  they  were  still  quiv- 
ering, into  another  place  to  be  disemboweled  and 
cut  limb  from  limb.  There,  in  that  great  hall 
that  was  filled  with  the  acrid  stench  of  blood  he 
had  had  his  first  vision  of  the  grinning  gargoyle 
of  fate  .  .  . 

Then  a  siren  had  blown  its  cleaving  whistle. 
The  roar  of  the  wheels  had  stopped,  the  speeding 
machinery  slowed  down,  the  hangmen  laid 
aside  their  knives  and  slipped  out  of  their  bloody 

135 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

aprons,  and  the  troop  of  victims  was  driven  back 
to  its  stalls — back  to  life.  And  even  to-day,  in 
the  midst  of  war,  himself  a  murderer,  beside  him 
the  slim  knife  with  which  his  hands  had  extin- 
guished the  life  of  the  little  Frenchman — even 
to-day,  he  could  feel  again  his  'triumphant  joy 
and  the  solidarity  he  felt  with  the  animals  who 
had  been  saved,  whom  another  respite  from 
death  had  been  given.  And  with  a  shudder  he 
thought  of  the  last  sheep  killed,  the  little  beast 
for  whom  the  whistle  had  sounded  just  too  late. 

Sheep!  Stupid,  bleating,  voracious  animals! 
And  he  had  been  so  full  of  compassion  for  the 
one  that  had  had  to  give  up  its  little  life  just 
because  the  steam  had  entered  the  siren  a 
moment  too  late! 

Was  there  no  one  who  had  compassion  upon 
men?  Was  there  no  signal  that  would  put  an 
end  to  this  slaughter? 

Wrapped  in  the  fog  which  grew  thicker  from 
moment  to  moment  Gadsky  gave  himself  up  to 
the  remembered  indignation  that  had  filled  him 
when  his  fat  little  Maecenas  had  explained  to 
him  the  part  assigned  to  the  bell-wether  who,  day 
by  day,  led  his  unsuspecting  brothers  down  to 
the  slaughter-house.  He  still  saw  before  him  the 
great,  overfed  beast  who  was  stubborn  and  had 
to  be  driven  back  with  sticks  because  he  was 
accustomed  to  retire  to  the  stables  alone,  in 
order  to  return  later,  proudly  prancing,  at  the 
head  of  new  victims.  He  could  still  hear  the  meat 
king's  condescending  laughter  over  his  artistic 
136 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

sensitiveness,  and  his  fingers  grasped  Ms  rifle 
convulsively  as  if  he  could  even  now  aim  at  that 
repulsive  beast  which  was  pampered  and  hon- 
ored and  which,  as  arrogant  as  though  aware 
of  its  importance,  passed  its  magnificent  life  at 
the  expense  of  whole  herds  of  its  brothers  whom 
it  led  daily  to  the  killing-pens. 

How  right  that  musical  murderer  of  sheep 
had  been  to  laugh  at  him.  What  did  it  matter 
that  the  blood  of  those  animals  was  shed?  One 
ate  their  flesh  with  pleasure  and  never  thought 
of  how  it  was  obtained.  How  devoid  of  signifi- 
cance the  whole  process  had  been!  How  absurd 
his  shudder  seemed ! 

For  here  precisely  the  same  machinery  was 
in  action  and  it  had  been  erected  so  as  to  cover 
kingdoms  and  republics  of  men  and  the  blood 
that  dripped  from  the  wheels  was  the  blood  of 
men.  Here,  too,  everything  had  been  well  thought 
out;  here,  too,  illustrious  guests  were  invited  to 
visit  the  organization  of  the  factory;  here,  too, 
there  was  no  escaping  from  the  steel  nets  and 
iron  arms  that  dragged  children  from  their 
parents.  And  first  they  were  also  put  into  the 
stalls  to  be  washed  and  shorn  and  prepared,  and 
on  great  meadows  they  were  made  ready  for  the 
killing.  There  was  no  stopping  the  relentless 
machinery  which  knew  no  holiday  and  no  uncer- 
tainty until  it  had  delivered  its  victims  to  the 
killing-pens  of  the  firing-line.  And  here  too,  the 
material  came  inexhaustibly  from  the  depots 
while  millions  of  eyes  and  ears  and  foreheads, 

137 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

damp  with  bloody  sweat,  listened  for  the  voice 
of  the  siren — millions  who,  in  their  convulsed 
souls,  clung  to  the  single  hope  that  the  siren 
would  whistle  and  the  wheels  stop  before  their 
bodies  were  swung  to  the  place  of  knives  and 
blood.  .  .  . 

And  there  were  men  in  the  world,  men  of  flesh 
and  blood  themselves,  with  eyes  that  could  see 
and  ears  that  could  hear.  And  these  men  had 
the  power  of  letting  the  steam  pass  into  the 
siren  and  give  the  signal — and  did  not  do  so. 
There  were  men  who  felt  the  looks  of  this  world 
full  of  agony  fixed  on  their  faces  and  who  had 
their  hands  on  the  lever  that  guided  the  machin- 
ery— and  they  exerted  no  pressure,  made  no  sign. 
He  could  not  help  repeating  this  thought,  for  it 
seemed  to  him  the  most  monstrous  and  incredible 
thought  in  the  world.  Yes,  there  were  men  who 
could  give  life  to  millions,  could  save  those  al- 
ready quivering  on  the  edge  of  the  abyss,  could 
work  this  unspeakable  miracle  and  refrained. 
They  were,  on  the  contrary,  quite  calm,  and  kept 
their  eyes  fixed  on  some  quite  distant  goal  which 
they  themselves  did  not  clearly  see  or  under- 
stand and  said :  "Until  that  goal  is  reached  the 
men  at  the  front  must  carry  on."  It  was  incred- 
ible. They  sat  where  they  could  control  the 
wheels  that  rolled  over  blood  and  bones,  and  ate 
and  drank  and  slept — oh,  yes,  they  actually 
slept,  while  the  machinery  roared  on  and  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  who  had  hoped  to  the  last 
138 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

moment,  bared  their  necks  to  the  gleaming 
knives. 

How  was  that  possible? 

A  painful  feeling  of  being  utterly  deserted  and 
alone  had  come  over  him.  He  seemed  to  see  him- 
self standing  there  in  the  fog,  abandoned  by  the 
world  and  even  by  himself,  and  by  all  who  knew 
him,  sinking  in  a  shoreless  swamp  from  wfiich 
salvation  was  impossible.  He  thrust  his  hand 
into  his  mouth,  so  ungovernably  strong  had 
grown  his  desire  to  cry  out — loud,  loud,  as  loud 
as  he  could — that  he  wranted  to  live,  to  live ! 

Did  he  amount  to  nothing  any  longer?  Was 
he  of  no  more  value  to  the  world  than  the  first 
tailor's  apprentice  that  one  might  meet?  How 
had  they  once  pressed  his  hands,  and  sunned 
themselves  in  the  reflection  of  his  fame  and 
turned  the  eyes  in  their  heads  over  the  unforget- 
able  delights  that  he  had  given  them!  Where 
were  they  now?  Oh,  at  staff  headquarters  or 
within  their  accustomed  places  at  home.  And 
they  were  very  careful  not  to  breathe  a  word. 
For  it  was  safest,  if  one  had  gotten  off  so  far, 
to  be  very  still,  to  say  no  word.  There  was  al- 
ways the  danger  of  being  drafted  and  of  sitting 
no  longer  at  one's  table,  but  of  joining  the  others 
in  their  dance  of  death.  Who  was  going  to  risk 
the  exchange?  You  couldn't  help  those  at  the 
front  anyhow. 

An  inexpressible  disgust  shook  him  when  he 
thought  of  that  cowardly  crowd  who  pursued 
their  business,  quite  satisfied  that  they  had 

139 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

saved  themselves  from  the  great  flood.  He  saw 
those  gentlemen  whose  lives  he  had  made  beauti- 
ful with  his  art  and  who  had  pressed  his  hands 
when  they  heard  that  he  had  volunteered  for  the 
service.  They  talked  with  self  satisfaction  of 
"carrying  on"  and  continued  to  command  their 
employees  and  thought  it  quite  right  that  other 
men  should  sink  back  into  slavery.  How  indif- 
ferently they  envisaged  the  monstrous  fact  that 
their  own  lives  continued  in  the  accustomed  way, 
while  others  went  where  first  their  souls  were 
stamped  out  of  their  bodies  and  then  those 
bodies  were  mangled  and  mutilated  before  death 
gave  them  rest.  And  if  any  one  were  to  dare  to 
shake  them  up  and  complain  of  the  utter  hor- 
rors that  others  had  to  endure — they  would  for- 
bid such  annoyances  and  shut  their  ears.  For 
they,  too,  were  human,  and  dared  not  have  the 
reality  brought  home  to  them.  It  was  better  to 
say  and  to  believe  that  each  bore  his  share  of 
the  great  burden.  It  was  the  part  of  the  "brave 
boys  at  the  front"  to  be  butchered  without  mak- 
ing a  disagreeable  noise.  Aiter  all,  it  was  no 
one's  fault. 

Once  only  he  would  have  liked  to  hurl  his 
contempt  into  the  face  of  those  who  had  accepted 
the  war  like  any  other  change  in  the  world,  and 
those  who  were  even  profiting  by  it!  Hard  as 
were  the  things  he  had  had  to  endure,  bitter  as 
others  might  still  be,  he  knew  that  he  would  not 
exchange  places  with  those  men.  Nor  would  he 
have  exchanged  places  with  some  of  his  im- 
140 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

mediate  colleagues.  If  he  had  to  choose  again, 
he  would  still  choose  to  die  here  rather  than  stay 
at  home  and  give  charity  concerts  for  widows 
and  orphans  behind  a  wall  of  lies ! 

He,  at  least,  had  the  right  to  look  the  war  face 
to  face,  to  despise  and  hate  it  from  the  depths 
of  his  heart.  He  did  not  have  to  play  the  hyp- 
ocrite and  declaim  the  contrary  of  what  he  really 
thought,  like  those  who  called  a  murderer 
blessed  simply  because  he  had  passed  their  own 
throats  by.  He  served  the  war,  thank  God,  by 
giving  himself  up  to  it,  not  by  withdrawing  him- 
self from  it.  He  at  least  was  perishing  because 
he  had  let  a  false  radiance  mislead  him.  No  one 
could  accuse  him  of  praising  the  great  murder 
at  a  safe  distance  and  of  securing  himself  by  an 
acquiescence  from  afar. 

Proudly  he  raised  his  head — and  then  sud- 
denly started  and  uttered  a  little  cry  as  some  one 
tapped  his  shoulder  softly  from  behind. 

It  was  the  sentry  wTho  had  come  to  relieve  him 
and  whom  he  had  almost  forgotten.  Without 
looking  at  the  man  he  stepped  back  silently 
and  slowly  followed  the  corporal  on  duty.  The 
wind  blew  behind  them  and  pressed  his  sodden 
shirt  like  a  cold  bandage  against  his  neck,  so 
that  his  teeth  chattered  with  the  chill.  Angrily 
he  pushed  his  helmet -forward  again  to  prevent 
the  water  from  trickling  down  his  back  and  mur- 
mured, half  to  himself,  half  to  his  companion,  a 
curse  against  the  weather. 

Immediately  the  corporal  stood  stock-still  as 

141 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

though  Gadsky's  words  had  sprung  a  strange 
trap.  "For  God's  sake,  don't  worry  about  the 
weather,"  he  said  hoarsely  and  his  eyes  gleamed 
strangely  in  the  darkness.  "When  the  fog  lifts, 
it'll  take  us  all  along  to  heaven !" 

Gadsky  felt  his  breath  give  out.  What  did 
that  mean?  Had  further  orders  come  in  while  he 
was  on  sentry  duty?  More  exact  orders?  Or  did 
this  man  merely  repeat  the  empty  croakings  of 
the  little  tailor?  He  was  just  about  to  ask  a 
definite  question  when  the  corporal  stepped 
aside  and  there  arose  behind  him  the  tall  slender 
silhouette  of  Ensign  von  Krtilow.  As  in  a 
dream,  and  as  though  a  thick  wall  separated  him 
from  those  two,  he  heard  Kriilow  utter  a  few 
brief  words,  heard  the  corporal's  respectful  an- 
'  swer  and  the  thump  of  the  latter's  boots  on  the 
wet  clay.  Not  until  the  sounds  of  the  steps  had 
died  away  and  he  felt  the  hot  hand  of  the  ensign 
igrasp  his,  did  he  awaken  and  draw  a  long  breath. 
Without  a  word  having  been  uttered,  from  the 
silence  itself,  he  felt  the  icy  certainty  flow  into 
his  mind,  as  though  the  great  peril  itself 
breathed  its  cold  breath  upon  his  face.  He 
opened  his  mouth.  He  meant  to  ask  a  question; 
he  tried  to  pierce  the  darkness  and  see  the  fea- 
tures of  Kriilow.  But  he  remained  silent.  Only 
the  throbbing  of  his  own  pulses  sounded  in  the 
stillness,  and  when  Kriilow  released  his  hand  he 
felt  as  though  a  last  means  of  salvation  had  been 
forevermore  withdrawn  from  him. 

Kriilow  was  silent,  too.  Without  stirring, 
142 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

they  stood  facing  each  other  for  a  little  while, 
listening  to  each  other's  souls  and  staring  at  the 
blackness  of  the  trench  wall. 

"It's  all  over,"  Gadsky  thought.  And  then 
every  fiber  of  his  being  rebelled  against  the  hope- 
lessness of  these  words.  There  was  no  such 
thing.  Had  not  people  held  out  for  days  in  mid- 
ocean  clinging  to  a  plank?  Had  they  not  been 
buried  fathoms  deep  in  earth  and  been  rescued 
after  all?  He  pulled  himself  together  for  a  new 
attack  upon  despair.  Then  the  nervous  hand  of 
the  ensign  touched  his  arm  and  from  the  soft 
voice  that  he  heard  there  arose  a  sadness  so 
weary  and  complete  that  all  strength  left  him 
again. 

"I  was  just  going  to  ask  you  to  use  your 
influence  over  Frobel,"  he  heard  Kriilow  say. 
Involuntarily  he  made  a  gesture  of  denial,  deeply 
wounded  by  this  demand  which,  passing  his  own 
need  by,  seemed  to  fix  its  attention  on  another's. 
By  what  right  was  so  much  more  demanded  of 
him  than  of  others?  Why  should  he  take  up  a 
stranger's  burden  at  this  hour?  A  burning  feel- 
ing of  utter  outrage  arose  in  him.  He  meant  to 
say  at  last  that  he  felt  no  inner  call  at  all  toward 
laying  down  his  life  with  any  especial  elegance 
of  gesture,  or  more  carelessly  than  any  other 
man.  He  wanted  to  say  that  shamelessly  and  to 
say  it  to  just  this  kindly  lad  whose  heart  was 
so  open  to  all  appeals.  He  wanted  to  show  him 
the  abyss  between  the  wretched  lives  of  these 
Others  and  the  magic  wealth  of  his  own. 

143 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

But  Kriilow  didn't  let  him  speak.  He  had  not 
been  able  to  see  the  hurt  and  outraged  look  in 
Gadsky's  face  and  he  took  the  gesture  and  the 
shake  of  the  head  to  be  merely  an  attempt 
modestly  to  deny  any  influence  over  Frobel. 

"Oh,  yes,  you  can.  You  have  more  influence 
over  him  than  the  captain,"  he  whispered  and 
spoke  on  insistently,  almost  beseechingly,  hold- 
ing out  his  hand  for  a  last  clasp  in  case  any  one 
should  appear. 

"The  captain  is  beginning  to  have  his  sus- 
picions. I've  done  all  I  could  to  reassure  him. 
But  whenever  we  talk  about  Frobel  he  says :  'I 
shouldn't  have  advanced  that  fellow.  He  seems 
to  be  a  damned  coward.'  Frobel  has  got  to  pull 
himself  together.  The  captain  just  told  us  that 
everything  now  depends  on  keeping  up  the  dis- 
cipline. He's  quite  ready  to  make  an  example  of 
any  one  in  order  to  stiffen  the  morale  of  the 
others.  Tell  Frobel  that  the  minute  you  see  him. 
He's  an  awfully  good  fellow  and,  of  course,  you 
can't  turn  a  kindly  sheep  into  a  tiger — as  our 
dear  Weiler  used  to  say.  But  he  ought  to 
restrain  himself  at  least  in  the  captain's  pres- 
ence. He's  got  time  enough  to  let  his  head  hang 
if  things  really  get  bad.  We're  far  from  the 
worst  now.  The  fog  may  stay  another  whole  day. 
Or  the  enemy  may  not  catch  on  until  the  with- 
drawal is  complete.  We  need  hold  out  only 
twelve  hours  more.  Then  we  have  permission  to 
evacuate  this  trench.  Tell  him  that,  if  he'll  keep 
a  stiff  upper  lip,  I'll  get  him  a  week's  leave  as  a 
144 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

reward.  And  also — tell  him  that  I've  got  a 
brother  over  in  Corsica.  He  was  made  prisoner 
in  just  such  a  situation  as  this.  His  whole 
squadron  was  cut  up.  But  he  got  a  bullet  in  his 
lung  at  the  very  start  and  simply  slept  through 
the  whole  affair.  When  he  came  to,  a  French 
surgeon  was  standing  at  his  bedside.  Fact !  My 
brother  wrote  us  all  about  it.  Tell  Frobel  that 
story  to  encourage  him.  I'd  be  sorry  to  see  him 
disgraced.  You  can  see  him  sitting  in  the  dug- 
out. He's  like  a  horrible  example!  If  the  cap- 
tain catches  him  that  way — there  will  be  trouble. 
Impress  that  on  him.  He  believes  so  in  you." 

He  had  said  all  that  in  feverish  haste,  glancing 
to  the  right  and  the  left.  Just  as  he  had  finished 
a  sentinel  appeared  in  the  communication 
trench.  He  called  out  in  a  forced  voice:  "You 
have  understood,  haven't  you?"  Then  he  saluted 
and  disappeared. 

Gadsky  stared  after  him.  He  had  scarcely 
heard  the  second  part  of  his  friend's  discourse. 
Only  the  phrases:  "We  need  hold  out  only 
twelve  hours  more  .  .  ."  and :  "The  enemy  may 
not  catch  on  .  .  ."  had  hooked  themselves  firmly 
into  his  brain  and  came  back  again  and  again  as 
though  a  wheezy  gramophone  played  the  same 
record  without  end. 

So  it  was  true.  Irrevocably  true.  Not  merely 
a  suspicion  or  the  gossip  of  the  trenches.  He  had 
heard  it  from  an  officer  who  had  probably  read 
the  orders  with  his  own  eyes.  .  .  .  Twelve  hours 
more.  That  meant  that  the  enemy  had  to  be  held 

145 


THE  JUDGMENT  OP  PEACE 

here  till  evening.  At  any  cost.  The  order  prob- 
ably read :  "To  the  last  man !"  Oh,  yes,  that  was 
the  customary  formula. 

"To  the  last  man !"  It  was  easily  said.  It  gave 
you  a  pleasant  shiver.  Warlike  sentences  like 
that  were  all  the  rage  now.  "To  the  last  man !" 
or  "To  the  last  breath  of  man  and  beast!"  You 
could  rattle  with  such  phrases  and  with  their 
implied  heroism  and  virility  just  as  you  proudly 
rattled  gold  coins  in  your  pocket.  At  the  begin- 
ning, when  this  whole  monstrous  thing  had  first, 
as  with  one  stride,  stepped  out  of  the  history 
books  and  the  historical  dramas  into  the  realities 
of  every-day  life  and  grandiose  phrases  had 
taken  the  place  of  common  speech,  in  those  early 
days,  he  was  bound  to  confess,  those  phrases  had 
given  him  too  a  reverent  shiver,  a  prickling  sen- 
sation made  up  of  curiosity  and  vanity.  .  .  .  To- 
night he  was  forced  to  think,  as  he  did  so  many 
times,  of  Weiler.  All  of  the  latter's  prophecies 
seemed  gradually  to  come  true.  Now  at  last  it 
became  clear  how  little  one  had,  after  all,  reck- 
oned with  the  possibility  of  death.  It  had  seemed 
something  incredibly  remote.  What  had  seemed 
real  was  a  mixture  of  iron  crosses  and  heroic 
gestures  and  a  triumphant  return  home.  Now 
the  one  shadow  amid  all  this  splendor  had  become 
the  sole  inexorable  reality.  The  weight  of  a  com- 
plete hopelessness  was  upon  him.  Five  days  in 
the  very  front  trench  under  the  incredible  ham- 
mering of  drum-fire  still  gave  one  a  chance.  One 
could  fix  one's  eyes  on  that  chance  and  overlook 
146 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

the  horrors.  But  such  combats  as  those  that 
were  ahead  now  meant  the  end.  If  they  repulsed 
one  attack,  it  only  meant  a  brief  pause,  a  pro- 
longation of  their  torment.  And  behind  all  that 
there  was  nothing,  emptiness,  at  most  a  few 
frosty  sentences:  "Ah,  Gadsky,  too!  Well! 
well !  I  must  say  I  am  sorry." 

His  arms  hung  down  as  if  filled  with  lead. 
His  knees  felt  hollow.  A  weariness  as  after  a 
ten  hours'  march  weighed  down  his  limbs,  tore 
the  rifle  from  his  hand,  forced  him  to  sit  down 
on  an  empty  munition  box.  Behind  him  raged 
the  wind,  rose  to  a  stormy  yiolence,  and  flapped 
his  icy  shirt  again  and  again  against  Kis  glowing 
body.  He  smiled  bitterly  as  he  thought  that  he 
needn't  fear  taking  cold,  not  even  developing 
pneumonia.  It  no  longer  mattered.  He  didn't 
care  in  what  state  of  health  the  fatal  day  might 
find  him.  Germs  that  settled  in  him  to-day  were 
not  destined  to  a  long  or  a  merry  life. 

There  was  an  advantage  in  everything,  he 
told  himself  ironically  and  fought  desperately 
against  the  gentler  emotions  which  Kriilow's 
superhuman  forgetfulness  of  self  had  called 
forth  within  him.  The  boy  wasn't  twenty.  He 
came  from  a  social  caste  that  looked  down  on 
primary  school  teachers  as  from  a  tower.  And 
yet  in  this  hour  fated  to  end  his  scarcely  opened 
life,  he  had  taken  thought  of  that  humble  man 
who  was  fifteen  years  his  senior.  Why  must  such 
radiant  goodness  perish  before  it  had  a  chance  to 
scatter  its  limitless  treasures  into  a  thousand 

147 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

empty  hearts  and  minds?  And  others  who  meant 
nothing  to  any  one  but  themselves  were  saved 
from  danger  by  a  happy  chance.  Was  one  not 
almost  driven  to  believe  that  an  evil  chance 
ruled  the  affairs  of  men,  when  one  saw  the 
destruction  of  the  kind  and  noble  and  the  careful 
preservation  of  the  cold,  the  narrow  and  the 
malicious?  This  little  Ensign  von  Kriilow  had 
two  brothers.  And  he  loved  life  so  touchingly 
and  was  here.  Those  two  were  arrogant,  stupidly 
proud  of  their  name,  tramped  like  blind  beasts 
through  that  world  which  he  won  for  himself 
through  the  great  love  in  his  soul.  And  one  of 
those  two,  the  elder,  had  a  comfortable  berth  in 
Berlin  at  the  great  headquarters  of  the  General 
Staff ;  the  other  was  safe  and  sound  now  in  Cor- 
sica. Could  not  these  two  dry  souls  who  heard 
no  sigh  of  man,  no  cry  for  help,  could  not  they 
have  paid  the  toll  of  blood  instead  of  the  young- 
est in  whose  hands  every  penny  of  the  great  fam- 
ily fortune  would  have  been  a  seed  of  mercy  to 
men? 

Holding  his  head  between  his  hands  Gadsky 
still  stared  at  the  tracks  which  Krulow's  feet 
had  left.  These  were  slowly  filling  with  water. 
And  he  tried  to  think  of  Krtilow.  For  in  the 
light  of  his  friend's  thoughts  he  was  ashamed  of 
his  own.  Did  not  the  two  hundred  men  who  had 
lived  by  his  side  for  months  until  they  had  all 
become  links  of  the  same  chain — did  they  not 
also  approach  destruction?  Yet  in  that  night 
his  thoughts  had  not  touched  upon  their  woe. 
148 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

His  indignation  against  those  who  were  safe  and 
far  away  had  been  quite  free  of  any  sympathy 
for  these  others.  He  had  thought  of  no  one,  he 
told  himself  bitterly,  not  even  of  his  friends,  not 
even  of  Frobel,  not  even  of  Krtilow  who  was  so 
much  younger  than  himself  and  who  had  yet  cast 
scarcely  a  glance  into  the  great  banqueting  hall 
of  life  which  had  been  for  him  the  scene  of  not  a 
few  triumphs. 

His  drenched  shirt  tormented  him  every 
moment  and  clung  to  his  back  at  every  motion  he 
made.  His  whole  body  shivered  and  trembled, 
but  he  was  determined  to  stay  here.  He  wanted, 
morbidly,  to  taste  the  whole  bitterness  of  his 
humiliation,  his  physical  wretchedness  and  deep 
discomfort.  With  shame,  with  a  hatred  of  him- 
self, he  thought  of  the  days  when  he  had  driven 
through  life  in  his  dry  dancing-shoes  and  had 
taken  no  thought  of  the  poor  devil  on  the  box — 
separated  from  him  by  only  a  pane  of  glass — 
whose  back  was  soggy  with  the  rain  water  and 
whose  clothes  flapped  in  the  cold  wind.  Dared  a 
man  who  had  lived  thus  be  indignant  against  the 
cruel  compulsion  that  held  him  here? 

And  now,  as  through  a  veil  there  came  an  image 
to  him,  a  memory  that  he  did  not  want  to  face. 
But  in  defiance  and  pride  he  forced  himself  to 
do  so.  Inexorable  to  himself,  he  spurred  his 
memory  on  to  reconstruct  that  scene.  And  he 
felt  a  cold  grip  upon  his  heart  when  he  calculated 
that  to  the  very  day  two  years  had  passed  since 
that  night — since  his  last  concert  in  Paris !  Who 

149 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

would  have  thought  that  it  was  to  be  his  last? 
There  was  a  storm  of  spring  just  as  now  and 
shook  the  hansom  cab.  Mathilde  was  sitting 
beside  him  in  it  and  her  eyes  gleamed  into  his. 
He  had  surpassed  himself  on  that  evening  so  that 
he  had  been  dragged  back  to  the  piano  again  and 
again.  He  was  now  tasting  the  full  savor  of  suc- 
cess in  the  pressure  of  her  fingers  and  the  glow 
of  her  cheeks.  He  had  indeed  played  for  her 
alone.  From  the  far  corner  of  the  hall  where  she 
had  had  her  seat,  power  and  tenderness  had 
streamed  into  his  hands. 

And  then?  Ah,  he  lived  through  that  scene 
again  as  vividly  as  though  it  were  being  reen- 
acted  before  him  on  an  invisible  stage.  He  saw 
again  the  white-haired  old  cabby,  blowing  and 
wheezing  in  the  storm  that  swept  across  the 
street  and  made  his  cab  shake.  Of  course,  he  had 
had  no  desire  to  palaver  with  the  cabby.  He 
wanted  to  get  to  Neuilly,  to  the  exquisite  little 
cottage  where  the  very  chairs  and  hangings  were 
impregnated  with  the  subtle  perfumes  of  Ma- 
thilde's  body.  There  supper  was  awaiting  them ; 
there  he  wanted  to  take  her  in  his  arms  and  feel 
his  triumph  as  an  artist  in  the  kisses  of  her  love. 
Was  it  surprising  that  he  had  spoken  briefly  and 
gruffly  to  the  old  man,  and  had  utterly  lost  all 
patience  when  the  rain  dashed  over  the  apron  of 
the  hansom  and  turned  Mathilde's  frock  of  pale 
green  crepe  de  Chine  into  a  moist  rag  that  clung 
to  her  slender  limbs? 

"Mais  M'sieur!  Par  c'  temps!"  the  old  man 
150 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

had  pleaded.  And  his  answer  had  been  merely  a 
harsh :  "En  avant !" 

Ah,  that  was  precisely  what  those  mighty  ones 
were  saying  who  conducted  this  retreat:  "En 
avant!"  They  too,  desired  with  an  equal  fervor 
the  success  that  would  bring  them  fame  and 
decorations  and  the  arms  of  love.  "En  avant !" — 
the  words  were  also  echoed  by  the  pack  that  pur- 
sued money  in  all  countries — war-profits  through 
steel  and  explosives — the  money  that  should 
have  bled  as  from  a  thousand  wounds,  but  that 
meant  to  them  pale  green  frocks  of  crepe  de 
Chine  and  lovely  cottages  as  homes  of  love.  That 
same  master  feeling  that  made  him  tense  as  a 
bow  each  time  that  he  ascended  the  concert  plat- 
form and  made  a  willing  tool  of  his  soul  and  his 
body  with  which  to  rule  the  hundred-headed 
beast  below  him,  that  same  intoxication  and  rage 
for  success  was  now  storming  through  the  Gen- 
eral Staff  offices  and  burning  in  the  hearts  of  the 
men  who  wanted  their  success  and  their  rewards 
and  their  victory,  no  matter  what  became  of  cab 
or  cabby,  of  George  Gadsky  or  of  an  hundred 
thousand  others ! 

He  seemed  to  sink  back  into  himself;  an  un- 
canny gaping  emptiness  surrounded  him.  He  felt 
unmasked  and  could  not  escape  from  the  net 
that  he  himself  had  woven.  For  it  was  just  as 
he  had  told  himself.  There  was  no  evasion.  The 
monstrous  injustice  which  he  had  cursed  that 
night  in  the  outer  trench,  when  it  was  rightly 
and  objectively  looked  upon,  was  nothing  more 

151 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

than  a  mere  change  of  social  station.  George 
Gadsky  had  been  expelled  from  that  happy  circle 
which  was  upborne  and  had  fallen  to  the  level  of 
the  bearers  of  burdens.  In  peace  he  had  been, 
as  it  were,  a  member  of  the  General  Staff;  to- 
night he  sat  on  the  box  of  a  cab  exposed  to  the 
streaming  rain  and  drove  others  toward  their 
success  and  their  joys. 

He  saw  clearly  enough  that  there  was,  as  an 
ethical  question,  a  way  out  for  him,  an  excuse  he 
could  offer  for  himself.  But  he  disdained  it. 
The  son  of  a  humble  man  who  had  gone  forth  into 
the  world  after  success,  insatiable  after  radiance 
and  triumph  and  love,  could  not  worthily  make 
the  excuse  now  that  he,  at  least,  had  not  sacri- 
ficed the  lives  of  men  to  his  greatness.  Because 
there  were  the  poor  fellows  who  had  paid  for  his 
success  with  infinite  disappointments,  who  had 
dragged  on  a  wretched  life  as  piano-teachers 
and  who  had  sat  with  hungry  eyes  in  the  crowded 
halls  at  his  concerts.  For  those  halls,  when  they 
had  rented  them  with  their  last  pennies  for  which 
they  had  starved  and  suffered,  always  remained 
empty.  Was  there  a  general  who  had  spoken 
more  contemptuously,  more  pitilessly,  of  the 
soldiers  who  gave  their  lives  for  his  success  than 
he  had  done  of  these  "piano-threshers"  and  all 
the  tribe  of  "bloody  amateurs"?  No,  this  con- 
flict with  bayonets  and  grenades  was  not  much 
more  cruel  than  that  competition  which  stamped 
on  souls  and  then  raced  on  without  asking  how 
those  victims  of  fate  managed  to  carry  on  their 
152 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

broken  lives.  And  he  himself,  had  the  choice  been 
offered  him  of  begging  his  way  through  life  as  a 
man  of  unrecognized  talent,  embittered  and 
pitied,  or  of  succumbing,  freed  of  all  that  agony, 
on  this  bloody  field,  would  have  hesitated  not  a 
moment  to  accept  the  latter  fate. 

Suddenly  he  grasped  his  rifle  more  sturdily 
and  jumped  up.  A  new  strength,  a  wild  and 
stubborn  determination  had  taken  hold  of  him. 
With  great,  firm  strides  he  went  toward  the  dug- 
out. He  was  too  tired  to  untangle  the  coil  of 
these  monstrous  happenings  here  in  the  windy 
trench  with  death  before  his  eyes.  He  could  not 
get  to  the  bottom  of  it  all  now.  But  he  felt 
clearly  that  he  had  his  share  in  the  world-wide 
guilt.  He  knew  that  the  hurricane  that  had  up- 
rooted him  and  hurled  him  hither,  had  not  arisen 
suddenly  and  without  cause,  but  had  slowly 
emerged  from  the  regardless  greed  for  life  that 
had  once  mastered  him  too.  And  the  mad  rage 
which  impelled  these  nations  to  fly  at  each 
other's  throats  and  to  wade  through  blood  and 
tears,  was  only  that  same  million-voiced  cry  in 
each  of  them  after  wealth  and  power  and  ease  at 
the  expense  of  others ;  it  was  the  same  blind  sel- 
fishness that  had  stung  him  too  to  follow,  with- 
out thought  or  ruth,  at  the  heels  of  success. 

He  hastened  back  to  get  some  sleep  before 
morning.  He  wanted  to  enter  that  fight  strong 
and  rested.  Now  that  he  recognized  that  he  was 
not  a  guiltless  sacrifice  at  the  mercy  of  an  ex- 
ternal catastrophe,  but  a  fighter  in  a  combat 

153 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

which  he — like  every  friend  and  every  foe — had 
helped  to  summon  upon  earth,  he  was  determined 
to  defend  himself  to  the  last  breath.  Let  them 
beware  who  would  rob  him  of  his  life !  Whoever 
had  shown  himself  as  sturdy  in  the  battle  of  life 
as  he,  need  not  lose  all  courage  because  the  fight 
was  to  be  fought  to-day  with  other  weapons, 
with  actual  blow  and  thrust.  He  would  defend 
himself.  Yes,  he  would,  by  God.  What  glory, 
what  unimaginable  blessedness  would  there  not 
be  for  him  if  he  could  fight  his  way  back  once 
more  into  his  real  life.  For  he  would  now  be 
able  to  value  it  a  thousand  times  more  after  this 
bitter  trial!  Then — only  then  could  he  hope  to 
make  up  for  the  shortcomings  of  his  old  avidity 
and  selfishness.  He  could  become  a  giver,  one 
who  does  not  walk  ruthlessly  over  the  weak,  but 
shares  his  happiness,  and,  like  Kriilow,  builds 
himself  a  house  of  joy  out  of  the  joy  he  gives 
away.  But  to  do  that  he  needed  to  live — he 
needed  to  preserve  himself.  Only  if  his  body, 
like  that  of  the  Frenchman  yonder,  slowly 
blended  with  the  earth — only  in  that  case  was  the 
present  result  of  his  life  a  final  one. 

So  he  would  fight! 

But  when  he  entered  the  dugout,  he  seemed 
to  receive  a  sudden  blow.  With  its  mighty 
grasp  the  disconsolate  sight  that  met  him  tore 
the  security  he  had  battled  for  from  his  soul. 
What  a  change!  He  had  left  merry  faces  here 
and  clinking  glasses.  And  now  he  found  shrunk- 
en figures  and  staring  eyes.  The  room  seemed  to 
154 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

exhale  horror.  They  crouched  there  as  though 
the  bony  hand  of  death  were  already  at  each 
man's  throat.  With  the  cold  smoke  that  floated 
above  them  was  blended  the  acrid  odor  of  the 
sweat  of  terror  that  poured  from  the  men's  bodies 
as  the  inevitable  hour  of  death  drew  near. 

Shuddering,  Gadsky  leaned  against  the  en- 
trance, when  some  one  grasped  his  arm  and  drew 
him  along.  "Please,  please,  come  on  out!" 
Frobel's  voice  hissed  into  his  ear.  He  wanted 
to  relieve  himself  of  the  weight  of  his  rifle,  but 
the  shaking  fingers  clasped  his  wrist  convul- 
sively, and  the  hoarse  voice  pleaded  wildly: 
"Take  it  along !  Please  take  it  along !" 

Annoyed  and  frowning,  Gadsky  permitted 
himself  to  be  drawn  out  into  the  trench  and  fol- 
lowed the  man's  breathless  pace  far  back,  beyond 
the  third  turning  of  the  trench,  to  a  niche  that 
had  once  been  filled  with  sandbags  and  had  then 
been  a  sort  of  first  bandaging  station.  "Where 
the  devil  are  you  dragging  me  to?"  he  cried  in- 
dignantly and  shrugged  his  shoulders  contemptu- 
ously as  Frobel  laid  a  warning  finger  on  his 
lips. 

He  stopped  in  the  niche  and  before  Gadsky 
could  prevent  it  Frobel  had  thrown  himself  on 
his  knees  before  him  and  was  stretching  out  his 
folded  hands  toward  him.  "Save  me !  For  God's 
sake,  save  me !  Think  of  my  wife  and  my  child ! 
For  God's  sake !" 

Gadsky  felt  a  bitter  taste  come  into  his  mouth ; 
a  physical  nausea  arose  in  him  at  the  man.  He 

155 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

could  have  struck  him  in  his  disgust.  "Get  up !" 
he  said.  "How  can  you  kneel?" — And  when  the 
dark  body  at  his  feet  seemed  to  sink  into  the  very 
mud  and  the  arms  embraced  his  hips  and  he 
heards  sobs,  he  repeated  angrily:  "Do  get  up! 
How  can  you?" 

Frobel  remained  where  he  was.  "Help  me!" 
he  whined.  "I've  tried  everything!  I  can't  do 
it !"  He  released  Gadsky  and  buried  his  face  in 
his  hands  and  wept  softly.  Then  his  terror 
shook  him  again,  he  clung  to  Gadsky's  coat  and 
cried  out:  "Help  me!  Please  help  me!" 

Gadsky  shoved  him  aside  and  said  gruffly, 
"For  heaven's  sake,  get  up!  How  could  I  help 
you?  We're  in  the  same  boat.  .  .  ." 

Frobel  jumped  up  as  if  he  had  been  stung. 
He  came  so  near  that  his  lips  almost  touched 
Gadsky's  ear  and  whispered:  "You  can,  you 
can  help  me.  You  can  save  me  if  you  want  to ! 
It  isn't  two  yet.  If  I  start  soon  I  can  reach  the 
rear  lines.  .  .  .  Help  me.  .  .  ." 

Gadsky  stared  at  him  uncomprehendingly  and 
stepped  back  a  pace,  since  the  other  had  grasped 
his  rifle  and  almost  tore  it  from  his  hand.  "What 
are  you  doing?  Take  care!  It's  loaded." 

Frobel's  teeth  chattered  like  a  man's  in  a  high, 
cold  fever.  "You  reported  to  me  yesterday  that 
.  .  .  that  your  rifle  is  defective.  .  .  .  Do  just 
touch  the  trigger.  .  .  .  I'll  pretend  I  was  exam- 
ining it.  .  .  ." 

Gadsky  hurled  him  afar.    "Are  you  mad?    Do 
you  want  us  both  to  end  on  the  gallows?" 
156 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

Frobel  fell  upon  him.  "No,  no,  no,  no!  You 
won't  even  be  suspected.  I've  thought  it  all 
out!" 

Gadsky's  patience  was  at  an  end.  He  freed 
himself  roughly  from  the  man's  clasp  and  held 
his  rifle  behind  his  back.  When  he  saw  Frobel 
in  a  state  of  collapse  lean  against  the  wall  of  the 
trench  and  sob  like  a  child,  a  shadow  of  pity  arose 
above  his  disgust  and  he  tried  to  convey  to  him 
the  kindly  and  encouraging  message  of  Ensign 
von  Krtilow.  He  tried  to  screen  all  coming 
danger  behind  the  anecdote  of  the  elder  Krtilow 
and  painted  Frobel's  ultimate  home-coming  out 
of  captivity  in  the  most  alluring  colors.  He  was 
finally  ashamed  of  the  mushiness  of  the  story. 

But  Frobel  scarcely  listened.  Gadsky  had 
first  of  all  told  him  of  the  captain's  suspicions 
and  that  upset  his  whole  plan.  He  broke  down 
utterly,  cowered  on  the  earth,  his  head  upon  his 
knees,  and  his  pointed  shoulders  shook.  Then  he 
pulled  himself  together  a  little  and  spread  out 
his  arms  and  said  in  a  voice  as  toneless  as  though 
it  came  from  a  great  distance,  "I  can't.  I  as- 
sure you  I've  tried.  I  simply  can't  understand 
you.  I  know  that  there's  nothing  worse  in  store 
for  me  than  for  you  and  all  the  others.  But  I 
can't  understand  you.  It  always  seems  to  me  as 
if  all  of  you  must  be  pretending,  just  playing  up 
to  each  other.  I  keep  asking  myself:  Do  these 
men  realize  that  when  it  comes  to  actual  dying 
they'll  have  to  stop  acting?  Or  do  they  count  on 
recognition  after  death?  I  can't  understand 

157 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

how  a  man  can  be  willing  to  give  up  his  life  for 
a  word  of  praise  of  which  he'll  be  as  unconscious 
as  this  stone."  He  took  his  head  between  his 
hands  and  pressed  on  his  temples  with  all  his 
might  and  cried  out  almost  at  the  top  of  his 
voice :  "I've  determined  a  thousand  times  to 
pull  myself  together;  I  know  that  the  others 
jeer  at  me,  that  my  stripes  will  be  torn  off  if  I 
don't  improve.  In  vain.  A  thousand  times  I've 
determined  to  be  braver  at  the  next  danger,  just 
as  brave  as  the  others  who  aren't  killed  either 
right  away,  just  because  they  don't  crouch  so 
low  or  even  stand  up.  But  then  I  always  ask  my- 
self again :  Is  your  life  worth  less  to  you  than 
an  appreciative  word  from  the  captain?  Is  it 
better  to  rot  with  your  stripes  under  the  earth, 
or  to  be  disgraced  and  branded,  but  alive?  Does 
any  one  really  know  what  people  say  of  him  when 
he's  dead?  I  can't  get  around  that,  much  as  I 
try." 

The  man's  confession  arose  from  an  unfath- 
omable depth,  sincere,  tormented,  moving.  And 
yet  it  filled  Gadsky  with  a  cold  repulsion.  The 
man's  whine  revolted  him  just  because  it  seemed 
to  express  as  by  means  of  a  crazy  caricature  the 
very  fight  he  had  fought  out  in  his  own  soul,  and 
because  it  voiced  shameful  thoughts  that  he  had 
crushed  into  silence.  He  saw  the  convulsive  fin- 
gers that  were  stretched,  out  toward  him  as 
though  he  were  a  plank — and  he  turned  away  in 
deep  distaste  for  this  love  of  self  that  forgot 
wholly  that  another  man  was  hovering  over  the 
158 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

game  abyss  and  needed  all  his  energy  to  hold  him- 
self erect. 

Frobel  felt  the  disgust  of  his  friend.  He  shook 
his  head  sadly  and  fell  silent  for  a  while.  Then 
he  bent  quite  near  Gadsky  again  and  whispered 
to  him  as  though  he  were  betraying  a  great  se- 
cret, "Look,  right  behind  that  observation  stand 
Dangler's  body  is  lying.  They  haven't  buried 
him  yet.  Twice  since  noon  I  went  over  there  and 
looked  at  him.  Ten  hours  ago  he  was  alive.  He 
might  still  have  been  alive.  But  he  volunteered 
for  dangerous  duty  just  because  he  wanted  the 
iron  cross  before  his  next  leave.  You  remember 
how  proudly  he  looked  around  and  how  his  eyes 
shone  when  the  captain  pointed  him  out  as  a 
model  soldier.  Look  into  his  eyes  now !  He  lies 
next  to  a  heap  of  boards  there  and  he's  no  better 
than  a  board  himself.  You  can  saw  him  in  half ; 
you  can  burn  him;  he'd  never  know  it.  What 
good  is  it  to  him  now  that  he  was  a  model  soldier 
yesterday?  Oh,  if  you  knew  how  I've  tortured 
myself.  But  no — it's  beyond  me.  While  I  was 
standing  by  him  the  sun  appeared  for  just  a 
second  and  shone  into  his  eyes,  into  his  terrible, 
white  eyes  that  seem  to  follow  you  about  when 
you  move.  And  like  a  crazy  man  I  called  out  to 
him  and  asked  him  if  he'd  do  the  same  thing  over 
again,  or  whether  he  wouldn't  rather  have  an- 
other glimpse  of  the  sun  and  go  home  to  his  wife 
and  child  without  a  cross,  unpraised,  despised, 
spat  upon,  but  erect  on  his  legs  that  now  fall 
back  to  the  earth  like  pieces  of  wood  when  you 

159 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

lift  them.  Oh,  I  tell  you,  I  would  have  given 
the  world  to  have  had  him  answer  me  that  ques- 
tion! I  could  have  split  open  his  head  to  dis- 
cover whether  you  know  when  you're  dead,  that 
you've  died  a  hero,  died  an  honorable  death." 

He  gasped  and  gasped  and  wrenching  sobs 
shook  his  body.  He  could  not  master  himself 
and  stretched  out  his  hands  toward  Gadsky.  "I 
know  you  despise  me  now  because  I'm  a  coward, 
because  I  beg  you  to  save  me  without  asking 
what'll  become  of  you  and  our  comrades.  But 
I  can't  help  myself!  There  must  be  something 
in  you  that  I  haven't  got!  You  must  all  have 
some  belief  that  I  can't  share.  Otherwise  you 
couldn't  play  this  way  with  your  lives;  you 
couldn't  let  people  set  you  the  task  of  dying  as 
if  it  were  a  lesson  for  which  you  wanted  a  good 
mark.  I  can't  take  it  that  way,  dear  Mr.  Gad- 
sky — I  simply  can't." 

His  voice  was  smothered  in  tears.  Gadsky 
gave  him  a  somber  glance  and  shook  his  head  con- 
temptuously. There  was  no  help  for  this  man 
and  there  was  no  reason  why  he  should  let  his 
own  hard-won  self-possession  he  undermined. 
The  last  straw  was  that  the  man  talked  so  loud 
that  the  conversation  might  easily  be  overheard 
from  the  communication  trench  and  reported  to 
the  captain.  There  had  been  a  wavering  shadow 
yonder  that  he  hadn't  quite  trusted.  With  quick 
determination  he  lifted  his  rifle  and  started  to 

go- 

Frobel  flung  himself  at  his  feet  again  and  em- 
160 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

braced  his  knees.  "No,  no!  Don't  leave  me! 
Don't,  dear  Mr.  Gadsky!  I  can't  do  it  myself. 
No  one  will  ever  know.  For  God's  sake !" 

Gadsky  thrust  him  back  wildly.  "Attention! 
Some  one  is  watching  us." 

Frobel  fell  silent  and  looked  about  him 
apathetically.  Then  the  shadow  which  had 
awakened  Gadsky's  suspicion  emerged  from  the 
sandbags  and  the  tall,  slender  figure  of  Kriilow 
appeared  turning  the  corner.  Gadsky  breathed  a 
breath  of  relief.  He  bent  over  Frobel  to  help  him 
up. 

"How  can  you  propose  anything  like  that  to 
a  comrade?"  Kriilow  asked  in  a  muffled  tone. 
"If  I  report  you,  you  will  be  disgraced,  tried, 
probably  shot  and  your  poor  family  would  get 
no  pension.  If  I  fail  to  report  you,  it  is  only  out 
of  compassion  for  your  poor  wife.  But  I  want 
you  to  remember  that  you  drive  her  and  your 
child  into  shame  and  want  by  your  cowardice." 
He  dried  the  sweat  on  his  forehead  which  had 
gathered  from  the  effort  it  cost  him  to  speak  so. 
Then,  after  a  moment's  reflection,  he  stretched 
out  his  hand  and  said  sternly:  "You  may  go." 

Frobel  slunk  tottering  away.  They  could  hear 
the  sobs  in  his  throat  until  he  had  turned  the 
corner.  The  two  friends  remained  silent  for  a 
little  while.  The  painful  scene  that  had  passed 
still  lay  between  them.  Gadsky  knew  how  hard 
it  was  for  Kriilow  to  play  the  officer's  part  to- 
ward older  men,  to  scold  the  father  of  a  family 
as  though  he  were  a  school  boy.  And  so  they 

161 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

stood  for  a  little  until  Kriilow  conquered  his  sen- 
sitiveness and  said,  "You  rushed  past  me  with- 
out noticing  me.  But  the  way  Frobel  pursued 
you  made  me  suspect  something.  I  didn't  mean 
to  listen.  But  I  was  afraid  some  one  else  might. 
So  I  watched."  He  sighed  with  relief.  He  had 
freed  himself  from  any  possible  suspicion  that 
his  friend  might  harbor.  And  now  he  resumed 
his  ordinary  tone  of  familiar  friendship.  "Won't 
you  join  me  in  the  officers'  dugout  for  a  bit?  I'm 
alone  there.  The  gentlemen  have  gone  over  into 
the  neighboring  sector  for  a  conference."  He 
looked  at  his  watch.  "They  can't  be  back  in  less 
than  an  hour." 

Silently  they  went  through  the  deserted  com- 
munication trench  and  entered  the  officers'  dug- 
out. Gadsky  left  his  rifle  at  the  entrance.  He 
looked  around.  There  was  nothing,  God  knows, 
in  the  room,  nothing  on  the  walls  that  could  have 
aroused  a  private's  envy.  The  dugout  was  neither 
better  nor  better  furnished  than  the  caves  of  the 
men.  And  yet,  whenever  he  entered  it,  Gadsky 
felt  oppressed  and  rebellious.  He  couldn't  help 
thinking  of  the  peasants  at  home  who  had  turned 
their  hats  in  their  hands  when  they  had  entered 
his  father's  office.  The  feeling  came  to  him  not, 
assuredly,  from  anything  in  the  appearance  or 
equipment  of  this  place.  But  he  could  not  for^ 
give  the  dark  hole  for  the  fact  that  he,  George 
Gadsky,  had  stood  at  attention  at  its  door  like  a, 
lackey. 

The  ensign  invited  him  to  sit  at  the  cente^ 
162 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

table  that  rested  on  four  rough  posts  rammed 
into  the  earth,  and  offered  him  a  cigarette.  Then 
they  stared  silently  into  the  little  lamp,  fettered 
by  the  tension  that  was  in  them.  For  Gadsky 
guessed  that  Krtilow  had  invited  him  in  for  a 
definite  reason.  He  saw  his  friend's  narrow,  pale 
face  grow  restless  and  the  corners  of  his  mouth 
twitch  and  felt  that  beneath  the  high,  smooth 
forehead  the  thoughts  were  crystallizing  into  a 
thing  difficult  to  say. 

Kriilow  noticed  his  glance  and  said  sadly: 
"I'm  sorry  for  poor  Frobel.  It  was  heartbreak- 
ing to  see  him  leave  his  wife.  I  remember  how 
he  kept  calling  out  to  her  long  after  the  train 
had  left  the  station." 

Gadsky  shrugged  his  shoulders  and  continued 
silent.  Surely  it  was  not  for  this  .  .  .  Krtilow 
was  evidently  trying  to  gain  time.  He  tried  to 
start  on  another  subject  to  divert  himself.  But 
his  large,  astonished  eyes  sought  Gadsky 's  face 
oftener  and  oftener  and  at  last  his  slender  arm 
crept  slowly  across  the  table.  "I  ...  I  wanted 
to  thank  you  before  .  .  ." 

Gadsky  gazed  at  him  in  astonishment.  He  felt 
the  clear,  warm  glance  upon  his  face.  And  with 
a  sharp  ache  in  his  throat  he  pressed  the  prof- 
fered hand. 

"You  can't  quite  understand,  I  know,  and  I 
can't  explain  it  very  well,  what  the  friendship  of 
you  two  fellows  has  meant  to  me.  I'll  have  no 
chance  to  tell  poor  Weiler.  So  I  wanted,  at 
least,  to  thank  you."  He  lowered  his  eyes  and 

163 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

hesitated  again  and  then  began  anew  with  a 
steadier  energy. 

"I've  aften  told  you  what  a  hard  time  I  had 
at  the  military  school.  Imagine  your  passing 
your  whole  childhood  and  youth  without  one 
soul-comrade,  teacher,  relative,  who  had  any  un- 
derstanding for  your  love  of  music.  Imagine 
every  one  around  you — without  exception — lov- 
ing whatever  you  abhorred,  and  jeering  at  every- 
thing that  inspired  you  as  low  and  unmanly. 
Wouldn't  you  have  been  tempted  to  believe  that 
the  fault,  the  defect,  lay  in  you?  I  had  no  experi- 
ence, you  see,  nothing  but  my  dreams,  and  since 
I  couldn't  believe  that  the  whole  world  was  spirit- 
ually crippled  I  naturally  thought  that  I  was." 
He  took  a  deep  breath  and  his  cheeks  glowed  and 
one  felt  that  every  word  came  from  hidden 
depths  and  at  the  cost  of  a  great  effort.  "As  I've 
told  you  before,  my  zeal  was  my  misfortune — 
my  unappeasable  hunger  for  intellectual  food. 
Everything  that  was  in  the  text-books — and  I 
had  few  others — and  everything  that  my  teach- 
ers happened  to  say  fell  into  my  mind  as  into  a 
well.  And  again  and  again  I  came  upon  contra- 
dictions that  I  couldn't  explain.  I  was  willing 
to  let  my  pastor  persuade  me  of  the  contemptible 
immorality  of  the  Jesuits  and  of  their  motto  that 
the  end  justifies  the  means.  But  when  I  timidly 
asked  whether  the  use  of  cunning  and  deceit  in 
war,  the  attempt  to  catch  your  enemy  napping, 
was  not  dictated  by  the  same  principle,  I  was 
sternly  condemned  as  harboring  an  immoral 
164 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

opinion.  I  was  proud — and  justly  proud — of  the 
iron  resistance  which  my  ancestors  had  opposed 
to  every  one  who  would  rob  them  of  their  free- 
dom and  their  German  character.  And  yet  my 
father  whipped  me  when,  in  the  summer,  at  our 
country  place  which  was  near  the  linguistic 
boundary,  I  applied  the  same  argument  to  the 
nationalistic  efforts  of  the  Poles.  I  couldn't  be 
satisfied  with  the  explanation  that  in  war  victory 
justifies  a  belief  not  only  in  the  greater  power, 
but  in  the  higher  morality  and  righteousness  of 
the  victorious  nation,  for  I  observed  in  history 
that  no  defeated  nation  ever  reasoned  thus  con- 
cerning its  conquerors.  And  indeed,  it  seemed 
to  me  that  this  was  a  remnant  of  the  medieval 
idea  of  God's  intervention  in  combat  and  led  di- 
rectly to  oppression  and  violence.  I  hinted  these 
things  to  my  brothers  and  to  my  comrades,  but 
I  found  none  who  was  plagued  by  such  doubts. 
I  was  no  weakling.  But  there  were  naturally 
some  who  were  stronger  and  in  reality  more 
brutal  than  I.  Modest  as  I  was,  I  couldn't  feel 
that  I  was  more  worthless  than  these  rough  fel- 
lows who  took  no  interest  in  anything  but  fights 
and  practical  jokes.  Neither  was  I  inclined  to 
take  revenge  on  the  younger  boys  for  the  miseries 
I  suffered  at  the  hands  of  the  older  ones.  So  I 
had  no  compensation  whatever.  Thus,  since  I 
knew  from  my  own  experience  the  nature  of  op- 
pression, I  could  not  think  oppression  a  sacred 
thing  if  practiced  by  one  social  group  over  an- 
other. And  so,  as  in  the  nationalistic  atmosphere 

165 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

of  any  modern  state,  it  was  brought  home  to  me 
that  I  alone  did  not  love  the  fatherland  as  it  was 
my  duty  to  love  it." 

He  had  arisen  and  walked  around  the  table 
and  stretched  out  both  hands  toward  Gadsky. 
"Can  you  imagine  what  it  meant  to  me  when  you 
and  Weiler  revealed  to  me  a  world  in  which  I  had 
no  longer  any  need  to  be  ashamed?  It  was  like 
some  old  fairy-tale  in  which  the  crooked  back  of 
the  child  is  suddenly  made  straight!  You  two 
expressed  openly,  and  as  a  matter  of  course, 
everything  that  I  had  barely  dared,  with  infinite 
doubt  and  hesitation,  to  confess  to  my  own  heart. 
For  the  first  time  in  life  I  felt  as  though  I  didn't 
bear  some  mark  of  secret  shame.  For  the  first 
time  I  had  a  circle  in  which  I  could  truly  be  at 
home,  for  the  first  time  .  .  ."  He  interrupted 
himself  and  his  suddenly  embarrassed  eyes 
sought  the  dark  corners  of  the  dugout.  And  with 
a  deep  but  hasty  and  final  word  of  gratitude  he 
dropped  Gadsky's  hands. 

Gadsky  understood  him.  Before  him  too  had 
arisen  the  image  of  Mathilde's  little  reception 
room  with  the  Louis  XVI  chairs  that  had  as- 
sumed an  almost  hectic  fragility  when  her  friends 
had  begun  to  appear  in  the  strange  clumsiness 
of  their  military  boots.  He  heard  again  the 
bright,  dear  laughter  of  Mathilde  which  always 
came  so  beautifully  at  the  right  moment  when 
any  debate  threatened  to  develop  a  touch  of  un- 
due heat.  Oh,  he  remembered  those  last  Sunday 
afternoons,  so  sweet  and  so  bitter,  that  seemed 
166 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

like  the  slow  dying  and  tragic  farewell  flare  of  a 
beautiful,  vanishing  world.  The  whole  melan- 
choly magic  of  those  last  few  cultivated  conver- 
sations over  her  delicate  teacups  arose  in  his 
heart  once  more  and  contracted  it.  These  fare- 
well hours  had  emerged  like  rare  stepping-stones 
from  the  humiliation  of  the  week's  morass,  in 
which  one  sank  deeper  and  more  hopelessly 
month  by  month.  He  looked  at  Kriilow's  averted 
face  and  he  knew  that  they  were  both  far  away 
for  a  moment  from  this  noisome  hole  in  the 
earth,  and  he  closed  his  eyes,  as  though  he  could 
thus  capture  the  image  that  traveled  by  them 
for  a  last  time. 

When  he  looked  up  again  and  took  in  Krfilow's 
slender  figure  from  the  small,  beautifully  shaped 
head  to  the  narrow,  aristocratic  feet,  the  tor- 
menting thought  entered  his  mind  that  this 
dreamy,  beautiful  lad  who  was  made  for  love 
would  have  to  go  under  here  without  ever  having 
known  it.  ...  A  nameless  bitterness  arose  in 
him  and  the  strange  and  subtle  thought  that 
Krtilow  was  the  one  man  to  whom  he  would  not 
have  grudged  Mathilde  in  the  event  of  his  own 
earlier  death.  But  he  rejected  the  melancholy  of 
this  mood  with  a  vigorous  oath  and  said :  "We 
say  good-by  to  each  other  here  as  if  it  were  a 
cut  and  dried  fact  that  the  devil  will  fetch  us  in 
the  morning.  We're  not  quite  at  that  point  yet. 
Let's  defend  ourselves !" 

Krtilow  didn't  answer.  But  he  shook  his  head 
with  a  tired  smile. 

167 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

"What  does  that  mean?"  Gadsky  burst  out. 
"Don't  you  intend  to  put  up  a  fight  for  your 
life?" 

Krtilow  looked  past  him  in  an  embarrassed 
way  and  said :  "Never  mind  about  that.  There's 
no  use.  And  I  suppose  I  must  ask  you  to  go 
now." 

But  Gadsky  refused  to  be  put  off  in  that  way. 
Suspiciously  he  scrutinized  the  pale,  resigned 
'features  of  his  friend  and  reminded  him  of  the 
fortunate  escape  of  his  own  brother. 

"Oh,  everything  is  possible  .  .  ."  Kriilow  an- 
swered and  his  eyes  wandered  again.  Then  he 
tried  surreptitiously  to  steer  Gadsky  toward  the 
entrance.  "It's  all  the  same  in  the  end.  We 
must  all  die  some  time.  Whether  it's  a  few  years 
earlier  or  later  .  .  ." 

"You  can't  get  rid  of  me  so  easily,"  Gadsky 
said  firmly.  "I've  got  to  talk  you  out  of  this 
mood.  You're  quite,  quite  wrong.  Nature 
doesn't  work  that  way.  She  works  like  an  in- 
dustrious sculptor  at  the  heads  of  her  victims. 
In  the  course  of  months  the  chin  is  pointed,  the 
cheek-bones  are  raised,  the  eyes  hollowed  and  not 
until  the  skull  has  almost  swallowed  up  the  face, 
not  until  the  thread  is  thin  to  the  vanishing  point 
does  fate  cut  it.  It  is  by  no  means  the  same  thing 
whether  a  tooth  is  torn  from  your  young  and 
vigorous  gums  against  your  will,  or  whether  an 
old  man's  tooth  drops  easily  from  his  enfeebled 
jaw.  We  must  fight  for  our  lives.  I  talked  quite 
as  you  do  so  long  as  death  was  afar  off  like  a 
168 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

bogey  man  that  no  one  quite  believes  in.  But 
during  the  night  I  thought  hard.  And  I  know 
now  that  our  present  and  obvious  duty  is  to  de- 
fend ourselves.  All  other  considerations  can 
wait." 

"And  I  have  done  my  thinking,  too,"  said 
E^rulow  very  quietly  and  seemed  suddenly  to 
withdraw  himself  into  an  austere  loneliness  of 
soul  while  his  face  grew  stern  and  gray  and  his 
gentle  mouth  hard  and  determined. 

"Listen,  Kriilow,"  Gadsky  cried  and  went  up 
to  him,  "I  give  you  my  word  of  honor  that  I  won't 
leave  you  unless  .  .  ." 

Krulow  smiled  again  and  put  his  hand  on 
Gadsky's  shoulder  and  his  voice  had  all  its  own 
gentleness.  "What  do  you  want  me  to  do?  I'm 
willing  to  grant  that  you're  right.  I  didn't  mean 
it  that  way,  anyhow.  Of  course  there's  a  great 
difference  between  dying  at  twenty  or  seventy. 
All  I  meant  was  that  all  men — whether  early  or 
late  is  no  part  of  the  argument — must  die.  You 
cannot  draw  your  first  breath  without  obligating 
yourself  to  draw  your  last.  From  the  moment 
that  we  received  the  gift  of  life  we  also  received 
our  condemnation  to  death."  He  paused  for  a 
moment  and  said  in  an  impassioned  and  uplifted 
voice,  "But  we  are  not  all  condemned  to  kill! 
Millions  die  without  having  stained  their  hands 
with  the  blood  of  their  brothers !  And  that  is  a 
decision  which  each  man  must  make  for  him- 
self." 

"Yes,"  Gadsky  cried,  "but  he  must  also  decide 

169 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

whether  it  is  not  his  duty  to  preserve  his  life  at 
the  expense  of  others  who  would  be  an  infinitely 
smaller  loss  to  the  world  than  himself."  He 
leaped  back  into  the  middle  of  the  room.  "On 
the  kind  of  people  that  survive  this  filth  depends 
the  whole  future  of  humanity.  I,  personally, 
have  probably  already  done  my  best  work,  I 
could  do  little  but  repeat  my  achievements.  But 
even  I  am  worth  defending  to  the  last  breath. 
Promise  me  to  do  the  same !  Have  you  a  vision 
of  what  the  future  would  be  like  if  all  high- 
minded  men  who  have  recognized  the  brutal 
stupidity  of  war  were  to  perm'it  themselves  to 
be  cut  down  without  resistance  and  leave  the 
earth  to  the  beasts  and  the  fools?  We  under- 
stand each  other,  you  and  I.  And  I  ask  you :  Do 
you  think  our  captain  will  fail  to  resist  and  do 
you  want  him  and  his  kind  to  have  the  ordering 
of  the  future?" 

"He  has  the  right  to  resist,"  Kriilow  said,  and 
joined  him  near  the  table.  "He  has  the  right 
because  he  firmly  believes  that  it  is  a  good  deed 
to  kill  as  many  soldiers  of  the  enemy  as  possible. 
His  conviction  is  an  honest  one." 

"Ah,  never  mind  about  his  convictions.  That's 
true  enough.  But  when  it  comes  to  the  point 
he'll  fight  quite  simply  for  his  life.  Death  is  a 
ticklish  business." 

Kriilow  shook  his  head.  His  face  had  assumed 
its  usual  aspect.  But  instead  of  his  accustomed 
timidity  he  showed  an  expression  of  mystical 
and  utter  certainty  which  occasionally  appears 
170 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

on  the  faces  of  silent,  thoughtful  people  when  at 
last  they  show  the  full  treasure  of  their  hearts 
and  minds. 

"No,"  he  said,  "you  do  not  understand  the 
militarist  of  the  captain's  type.  He  has  existed 
in  every  age;  he  exists  to-day  in  every  country. 
He  is  even  more  dangerous,  but  far  less  ignoble 
than  you  think.  I've  been  through  it  all  and  I 
know.  For  you,  Gadsky,  death  was  only  a  dis- 
tant threat  of  which  you  didn't  think,  a  creditor 
of  whom  you  hated  to  be  reminded.  But  to  the 
men  of  my  class  death — death  in  the  service  of 
our  king  and  country — is  the  daily  familiar  thing 
of  all  our  thoughts  and  scenes  and  studies  from 
childhood  on.  There  is  no  piece  in  your  repertory 
that  you  have  rehearsed  so  often  and  so  thor- 
oughly as  Captain  von  der  Otte  has  rehearsed 
the  death  he  will  die  when  morning  comes.  His 
studies,  his  work,  his  private  and  professional 
life  all  culminate  and  were  meant  to  culminate 
in  this  final  and  supreme  act.  Everything  he  has 
ever  done  or  thought  has  contributed  to  the  sac- 
rifice he  will  make  to-morrow.  And  he  awaits 
that  to-morrow  in  no  very  different  mood  from 
yours  when  you  prepared  yourself  for  your  first 
public  appearance  as  an  artist." 

He  ceased  for  a  moment  as  though  exhausted 
and  then  went  on  once  more  with  a  sharp  and  bit- 
ter little  smile.  "Poor  Frobel  wasn't  so  far 
wrong  in  his  analysis.  There's  a  bit  of  play-act- 
ing about  it  all,  however  unconscious.  People 
like  our  captain  do  not,  from  their  point  of  view, 

171 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

die  alone.  And  though  the  enemy  were  to  let  him 
starve  in  a  subterranean  cell  into  which  no  hu- 
man eye  can  penetrate,  yet  the  feeling  that  he  is 
dying  for  his  king  and  his  country  would  sur- 
round his  martyrdom  with  a  host  of  invisible 
witnesses.  All  the  great  generals  from  Hannibal 
to  Napoleon,  and  from  Moltke  to  Hindenburg, 
all  the  lesser  heroes  in  the  traditions  of  his  regi- 
ment, all  the  teachers  and  the  comrades  of  his 
youth  will  seem  to  be  there  and  to  nod  their  ap- 
plause when  Captain  von  der  Otte  once  more 
shows  the  Frenchmen  how  a  Prussian  officer  can 
die!  Ah,  that  is  it!  He  believes!  He  has  the 
faith!  He  has  the  right  to  defend  himself,  for 
he  truly  believes  that  the  deed  which  is  dishonor- 
able when  done  from  personal  motives  is  illus- 
trious and  glorious  if  it  brings  new  might  and 
new  wealth  to  his  sovereign  lord,  the  king.  He 
believes — and  is  he,  alas,  so  far  wrong? — that  the 
world  admires  a  country  that  can  strew  the  fields 
of  battle  with  the  bodies  of  its  bravest  sons ;  he 
holds  it  to  be  his  sacred  duty  to  leave  the  enemy 
no  choice  but  death  or  submission  to  his  country's 
will.  And  does  not  the  very  enemy,  who  is  filled 
with  the  identical  faith,  sustain  him  in  his  own? 
Then  why  should  he  not  defend  himself?  Why 
should  he  not  kill  or  else  be  killed,  since  the 
kernel  and  marrow  and  backbone  of  his  entire 
life  is  in  this  faith?  He  would  rather  have  re- 
nounced life  itself  long  ago  than  the  opportunity 
of  this  honor !  It's  all,  you  see,  a  question  of  the 
inner  man.  What  makes  this  day  so  insufferably 
173 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

hard  for  us  is  that  we  are  asked  to  die  for  the 
ideals  of  Captain  von  der  Otte  and  not  for  that 
which  seems  beautiful  and  important  to  our- 
selves. And  so,  since  there  is  no  salvation  for  us, 
since  we  must  die — there  is  but  one  thing  left 
us :  to  change  the  aim  and  purpose  of  our  sacri- 
fice. I  shall  push  my  own  faith  into  the  fore- 
ground and  death  will  no  longer  be  too  hard  to 
bear." 

Tormented  by  a  keen  uncertainty,  Gadsky 
walked  rapidly  up  and  down  the  floor  of  the  dug- 
out. Now  and  then  he  stopped  to  regard  the 
flaming  and  determined  face  of  his  friend.  The 
music  of  the  lad's  voice  had  captured  him;  he 
felt  an  almost  fatherly  anxiety.  He  sought  in 
all  the  corners  of  his  brain  for  something,  some 
hope,  some  task  with  which  to  sting  into  new 
energy  Kriilow's  will  to  live.  And  he  remem- 
bered suddenly  Mathilde's  strange  assertion  that 
the  little  ensign  wore  an  invisible  crown  of  thorns 
and  that  the  occasional  glint  as  of  a  Savonarola 
in  his  gentle  features  made  him  so  charming. 
Ah,  women  had  a  fine  instinct  for  these  hidden 
passions  of  the  soul.  Perhaps  that  accounted  for 
Krtilow's  reverential  adoration  of  Mathilde.  He 
felt  that  she  knew,  that  she  guessed.  .  .  .  And 
suddenly  Gadsky  determined,  as  a  last  resort,  to 
use  her  name.  He  approached  the  table  once 
more  and  exclaimed:  "I  wish  Fraulein  von 
Moellnitz  were  here  to  help  me.  She'd  set  you 
straight !" 

Kriilow  turned  away  and  his  cheeks  flamed. 

173 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

The  name  had  been  hovering  between  them  unex- 
pressed. Now  it  was  suddenly  flung  at  him.  It 
was  like  a  blow.  He  clasped  his  hands  behind 
him  and  walked  to  the  other  end  of  the  room. 
Gadsky  felt  sorry  and  sought  for  words  in  which 
to  ask  the  other's  pardon.  But  Krtilow  mastered 
his  emotion,  returned  and  answered  quietly  and 
with  an  almost  cool  superiority,  "I  am  convinced 
that  Fraulein  von  Moellnitz  would  understand 
me.  She  confessed  to  me  that  she  was  deeply 
repelled  by  the  men  who  came  back  from  the 
front,  radiant  and  boasting  of  the  murders  on 
their  conscience  like  criminals  in  a  den  of  thugs." 
He  reflected  for  a  moment  and  then  laid  his  hand 
on  Gadsky's  shoulder  with  an  air  of  finality. 
"You  must  believe  me  when  I  say  that  I  have  re- 
flected on  these  things  thoroughly.  And  long  be- 
fore last  night.  From  the  moment  that  I  saw 
the  first  dead  and  wounded,  I  knew  with  the  ut- 
most certainty  that  nothing — nothing  in  all  this- 
world — could  possibly  justify  or  sanctify  mur- 
der. The  conviction  which  I  long  suspected  in 
myself  has  now  become  an  unalterable  certainty 
of  my  soul.  And  I  owe  that  not  least  of  all  to 
you  and  to  Fraulein  von  Moellnitz  herself.  I  do 
not  believe  that  there  are  any  circumstances 
which  can  make  it  honorable  to  pierce  the  bodies 
of  men  with  bayonets  or  bullets.  And  I  do  not 
believe  that  any  one  has  the  right  to  require  that 
deed  of  me.  All  that  any  one  can  ask  is  that  I 
should  die  rather  than  give  up  my  faith.  And 
that  I  shall  do.  I  shall  not  kill !  I  will  neither 
174 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

stab  nor  shoot.  For  the  fact  that  other  and  sorely 
misguided  men  will  seek  to  take  my  life  is  no 
reason  for  me  to  yield  to  the  same  madness.  I 
shall  die  for  what  I  hold  to  be  my  duty,  for  what 
seems  good  and  honorable  to  myself,  precisely  as 
our  captain  will  do.  Please  don't  try  to  per- 
suade me.  It  would  be  quite  useless.  And  you 
must  go  now.  If  you  were  found  here  it  might 
be  embarrassing  to  us  both.  We'll  see  each  other 
later.  And  perhaps  we  won't  reach  the  extrem- 
ity this  time.  We  may  be  able  to  withdraw  be- 
fore the  French  attack."  Jestingly  but  with  the 
faintest  suggestion  of  seriousness  he  added : 
"Please  go  now  or  I'll  have  to  act  the  officer." 

It  was  still  with  an  inner  resistance  that  Gad- 
sky  approached  the  opening  of  the  dugout.  And 
when,  for  the  last  time,  he  surveyed  the  whole 
grim  plainness  of  the  room  and  saw  himself 
standing  there  hand  in  hand  with  Kriilow,  a  say- 
ing of  Frobel's  flashed  into  his  mind :  "They're 
all  play-acting."  And  wasn't  it  like  a  well- 
managed  scene?  Like  the  effective  curtain  of 
an  heroic  dramatic  action?  Two  men  in  the  dark 
night  .  .  .  death  lying  in  wait  for  them  .  .  . 
the  image  of  a  beloved  woman  hovers  above  them 
both  .  .  .  silently  they  grasp  each  other's  hands 
.  .  .  there  are  tears  that  do  not  reach  the  eye. 
Ah,  no !  This  lad,  at  least,  was  not  acting.  He 
was  throwing  his  young  life  away  without  think- 
ing of  any  effect  it  would  have.  And  indeed  his 
way  of  doing  it  would  be  thought  soiling  and  de- 
grading. And  yet,  and  yet,  and  yet — Gadsky 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

felt  it  in  a  moment  of  troubled  and  supreme  in- 
sight— into  this  farewell  of  theirs  there  entered 
something  of  the  false  feeling  of  all  the  age-long 
declamations  concerning  the  readiness  of  true 
men  for  an  honorable  death,  and  the  courage  of 
warriors !  Honest  as  was  their  dumb  determina- 
tion, free  as  they  felt  themselves  of  any  concern 
for  the  crowd  and  its  judgments,  yet  deep  within 
them  slumbered  their  boyhood's  admiration  for 
heroes  who  threw  their  lives  away  like  copper 
coins — deep  in  them  glowed  the  fever  with  which 
they  had  read  the  nights  away  over  heroic  stories 
of  old  times — deep  in  them  throbbed  the  poison 
of  that  immemorial  tradition  of  blood  and  tears. 
And  like  a  sudden  prescience,  far  and  faint,  there 
came  to  Gadsky's  mind  the  prophetic  thought  of 
a  new  romance  that  would  be  built  of  Frobel's 
indestructible  will  to  live,  of  Krtilow's  fanatical 
reverence  for  life — the  new  romance  of  a  new  and 
better  world.  But  the  vision  was  lost  in  the  dis- 
consolateness  of  the  present  and  he  permitted  the 
cool,  slightly  vibrating  hands  of  his  friend  to 
lead  him  out  into  the  darkness  of  the  trench. 

Outside  he  remained  standing  for  a  while. 
There  were  tears  in  his  throat.  He  was  tempted 
to  return  and  not  to  desist  until  he  had  wrung  a 
promise  from  Kriilow.  With  a  heavy  sigh  he  at 
last  took  up  his  rifle  and  vowed  a  solemn  vow  not 
to  leave  Krtilow's  side  on  the  morrow,  to  risk  his 
own  life  for  him  at  every  moment.  Then  at  last 
he  turned  to  go. 

In  front  of  the  men's  dugout  he  turned  reso- 
176 

\ 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

lutely  away.  He  wanted  to  pass  alone  the  few 
hours  until  dawn.  He  did  not  want  to  endure  the 
judgment  of  Frobel's  tearful  glances.  He  turned 
up  the  collar  of  his  greatcoat  and  went  out  to 
seek  some  hidden  corner.  Perhaps  he  might  get 
a  little  sleep  yet.  Already  the  darkness  above 
the  trench  was  turning  into  a  blackish  blue ;  the 
wind  had  fallen;  only  far  above,  under  the  in- 
visible vault,  a  roaring  could  be  heard. 

A  few  steps  from  the  empty  munition  box  to- 
ward which  he  was  going,  he  saw  a  soldier  rest- 
ing his  head  against  the  wall  of  the  trench.  He 
looked  closer  and  recognized  the  little  Jewish 
tailor  whom  they  called  the  "vaudeville  man." 
"Well,  what  did  I  tell  you?"  The  words  came  to 
him  sadly.  Yet  despite  his  sympathy  he  smiled 
at  the  involuntary  singsong  of  the  voice,  which 
reminded  him  of  nights  in  variety  theaters  and  of 
merry  anecdotes  and  seemed  so  strange  and  con- 
tradictory amid  the  sandbags  and  the  trench 
mortars. 

Gadsky  sought  for  some  consoling  thing  that 
he  could  say  to  the  small  man,  and  finally  told 
him  the  story  of  the  older  Kriilow  which,  some- 
how, didn't  sound  very  convincing.  The  tailor 
did  not  answer  for  a  time,  carefully  withdraw- 
ing his  face  within  the  protecting  shadow.  Then 
suddenly  he  pulled  up  his  shoulders  and  ex- 
tended his  arms  and  answered  bitterly:  "Thafs 
very  fine  for  a  Mr.  von  Krtilow,  for  an  aristocrat 
who  rode  horseback  already  when  he  still  had  a 
rubber  nipple  in  his  mouth.  If  I  get  that  same 

177 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

shot  into  my  little  tailor's  lungs  I'd  be  dead  be- 
fore the  Frenchmen  got  to  our  trench.  And  any- 
how, why  do  you  want  to  make  me  feel  hope- 
ful? You  might  better  help  me  to  give  up  hope. 
For  ten  hours  I've  been  trying  to  persuade  my- 
self that  it's  all  over  with  me  and  I  can't  believe 
it  yet." 

Gadsky  lowered  his  head  and  stared  at  his 
boots.  It  was  sad  to  hear  this  ready  jester  talk 
in  that  unaccustomed  way.  And  God  knows,  he 
was  right.  Why  revive  hope  here?  And  yet 
Gadsky  couldn't  bear  to  leave  the  poor  devil 
alone  with  his  equanimity  which  was  so  hard- 
won  and  which  suited  him  as  little  as  the  trench- 
helmet  did  his  face.  And  so  in  farewell  he  laid 
his  hand  on  the  tailor's  shoulder  and  willingly 
put  all  the  human  warmth  he  felt  into  his  voice : 
"Why  do  you  stay  out  here?  It's  much  easier  to 
bear  among  others  where  one  must  pull  oneself 
together." 

Before  he  had  ended  the  sentence  the  shoulder 
slipped  from  his  touch  and  a  suddenly  strange 
and  hate-filled  voice  struck  on  his  ears.  "No, 
thank  you.  Frobel  has  that  right,  but  not  I.  I 
was  just  thinking  as  you  came  along,  how  well  off 
the  rest  of  you  are.  If  you  happen  to  be  brave 
you're  one  of  the  many  splendid  German  fighters. 
If  you  sit  in  the  dugout,  pale  as  a  sheet,  with 
your  eyes  full  of  tears,  you're  just  the  cowardly 
Karl  Frobel,  let  us  say.  That's  all.  But  I've 
got  to  go  and  hide  here  because  my  three  Jewish 
comrades  in  the  battalion  would  be  made  to  pay 
178 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

for  every  sigh  I  might  indulge  myself  in.  And 
do  I  help  any  one,  I  ask  you,  if  I  do  pull  myself 
together?  I've  just  been  asking  myself  what 
good  it  will  do  if  I  die  here  as  grandly  as  if  I'd 
been  a  lion  tamer  all  my  life  and  not  a  Jewish 
tailor?  It  will  help  no  one,  I  tell  you — no  one 
in  the  world  will  be  the  better  for  it.  When  my 
two  boys  grow  up  they'll  be  called  cowardly 
Jews  just  the  same  and  no  one  will  ask  whether 
their  father  was  a  tiger  or  a  hare." 

Deeply  shaken  Gadsky  listened  to  the  man's 
grim  bitterness.  Was  it  really  the  "vaudeville 
man"  who  spoke  thus?  Could  one  thus  live  side 
by  side  with  a  human  being  for  months  and  not 
suspect  the  bitterness  that  ate  into  his  soul? 
"Your  two  boys  will  not  be  called  that,"  he  said 
with  all  the  energy  and  conviction  of  which  he 
was  capable.  "Surely  you  are  making  that  im- 
possible by  your  own  .  .  ." 

A  sarcastic  laugh  interrupted  him.  "You 
think  so?  Then  listen  to  me.  Yesterday  it  was 
my  turn  to  clean  the  officers'  dugout.  And  there 
I  picked  up  several  copies  of  the  paper  which  is 
sent  to  the  captain.  Do  you  want  to  read  an 
article  I  read  there?  I  can  show  it  to  you.  There 
you'll  see  it  printed  black  on  white  that  the 
Jews  are  the  worst  profiteers  in  the  war,  that 
they're  the  only  ones  who  sell  shoes  with  paper 
soles  and  take  usurious  interest  and  then  go  and 
swamp  the  expensive  restaurants.  The  man  that 
wrote  that  doesn't  know  anything,  of  course, 
about  the  four  of  us  here  in  the  battalion.  Oh, 

179 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

no,  what  he  knows  about  is  the  expensive  restau- 
rants. Otherwise  how  would  he  know  who  eats 
there?  But  can  you  tell  me  why  he  never  takes 
a  look  at  the  back  page  of  one  of  the  liberal 
papers — the  so-called  Jewish  press — and  finds 
out  about  the  crowd  of  Siegfried  Cohns  and 
Moritz  Rosenthals  of  whom  it  is  announced  there 
either  that  they  have  received  the  iron  cross  or 
else  that  they  have  fallen  on  the  field  of  honor? 
Don't  tell  me!  My  boys  have  just  such  crooked 
noses  and  crooked  legs  as  I  have.  And  the  people 
who  meet  them  will  always  connect  them  in  their 
thoughts  with  the  fat  profiteers  whom  they've 
seen  somewhere  eating  lobsters  or  decked  with 
diamonds,  and  no  one,  no  one,  I  tell  you,  will 
think  of  the  many  thousands  of  crooked  noses 
who  have  fed  the  worms  at  every  front ! — No,  no, 
you  needn't  excuse  yourself.  I  know  it  isn't  your 
fault." 

Silently  Gadsky  held  out  his  hand  to  the  little 
man.  He  was  profoundly  moved  by  that  last 
sentence  which  was  meant  to  take  the  sting  out 
of  all  the  sharp  accusations  he  had  made.  He 
felt  the  gratitude  to  him  personally  that  shone  in 
those  final  words  and  the  heartiness  with  which 
the  little  man  took  his  hand  put  him  to  shame. 
For  hadn't  he  also  once  thoughtlessly  joined  in 
the  cheap  jests  of  others  when  a  certain  fat 
woman  in  her  best  clothes,  flanked  by  two  boys 
with  curved  noses,  had  come  to  the  barracks  to 
call  for  her  husband  on  Sunday?  How  much 
true  self-mastery,  how  much  corroding  and 
180 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

valiantly  suppressed  indignation  did  this  little 
man  hide  behind  his  courtesy  and  his  pleasant 
humor!  And  because  in  the  loneliness  of  his 
last  hours,  in  the  isolation  which  he  had  stub- 
bornly sought,  he  heard  a  gracious  word,  because 
one  open  ear  was  lent  to  the  lightening  of  his 
righteous  anger  before  it  died  forever — for  so 
little  he  was  grateful  and  had  pressed  the  hand 
of  his  enemy  as  though  it  had  been  a  brother's. 

It  was  hard  to  find  a  reply.  For  what  the  man 
said  was  no  result  of  a  fleeting  mood.  It  had 
been  thought  over  a  thousand  times ;  it  had  been 
suffered  for  in  many  hours  of  humiliation.  After 
long  hesitation  and  shuddering,  even  while  he 
said  it,  over  its  frosty  banality,  Gadsky  said: 
"You  take  too  black  a  view."  The  man  accepted 
the  conventionality  of  the  saying  and  replied 
with  a  forced  laugh,  "Why  shouldn't  I?  As  you 
know,  my  name  is  Black." 

And  again,  as  in  the  officers'  dugout,  the  feel- 
ing came  over  Gadsky  that  he  was  on  a  stage. 
And  he  felt  like  asking :  Why  do  we  try  to  play 
up  to  each  other  now?  He  dropped  the  tailor's 
hand,  chilled  by  the  realization  of  the  fact  that 
only  his  presence  constrained  that  valiant  little 
coward  to  force  a  few  last  jesting  words  to  his 
lips.  Why  compel  him  to  pretend  any  longer? 

Hastily  he  went,  throwing  behind  him  the 
words :  "Good  luck !" 

The  little  man  laughed.  "Luck?  What  do  you 
mean  by  luck  now?  Wish  me  a  clean  bullet 
straight  through  the  head." 

181 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

Gadsky  carried  the  bitter  jest  away  with  him. 
With  great  strides  he  hurried  back  to  the  empty 
ammunition  box  and  sank  down  on  it  as  weary 
as  though  he  had  been  broken  on  the  wheel,  as 
burdened  as  though  all  the  heaviness  of  heart  of 
which  he  had  become  aware  were  resting  on  his 
back — as  though  Krtilow's  will  to  death  and 
Frobel's  raging  terror  and  the  Jew's  terrible 
accusation  had  all  turned  to  stone  and  were 
dragging  him  down  an  abyss.  And  all  that — 
what  an  infinitesimal  part  it  was  of  the  sum  of 
life  and  suffering  here.  Oh,  it  was  but  one  drop 
which  to-morrow  would  be  sucked  up  by  the 
rays  of  the  indifferent  sun. 

Kriilow,  the  Jew,  Frobel,  himself,  the  whole 
battalion  and  several  adjoining  battalions — it 
was  all  hardly  worth  mentioning.  If  the  enemy 
were  only  held  until  the  division  could  occupy 
the  newly  prepared  positions,  every  telegraph 
wire  to-morrow  night  would  tingle  with  the  tri- 
umphant message:  "With  negligible  losses  we 
succeeded  in  withdrawing  to  carefully  prepared 
positions  and  unhindered  by  the  enemy,  etc, 
etc." 

"Negligible  losses" — yes,  that  would  mean 
them.  The  dread  of  that  last  night,  the  crip- 
pling of  their  terrible  will  to  live — "Negligible 
losses" — copper  coins  that  you  throw  on  a  table 
without  counting. 

A  soft  gray  was  sickering  through  the  dark- 
ness and  raised  out  of  the  black  chasm  at  his 
feet  the  boards  which  ran  through  the  trench. 
182 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

The  shovels  and  spades  that  lay  there,  the  rifles 
that  leaned  against  the  walls,  these  were  not 
yet  distinguishable  and  only  gradually  detached 
themselves  from  the  solid  darkness,  as  if  assum- 
ing their  forms  for  the  first  time.  And  while  his 
eyes  clung  to  the  emerging  contours  of  a  spade 
or  a  rifle,  there  arose  within  him  stubbornly 
again  and  again  the  expression:  "Lifeless  ob- 
jects .  .  .  lifeless  objects."  And  this  expression 
seemed  itself  gradually  to  attain  to  visible  form 
and  to  weigh  him  down  and  tug  and  tear  at  his 
heart  with  the  yearning  over  the  inviolability 
which  it  expressed. 

Nothing  could  harm  these  things.  A  shell 
might  shatter  the  handle  or  roll  up  the  metal 
into  the  likeness  of  a  strange  flower.  These  dead 
things  could  not  die.  The  terrible  step  into  the 
land  of  insensibility,  the  wrenching  from  life,  the 
incomprehensible  secret  that  cried  from  every 
human  corpse — these  dead  things  knew  nothing 
of  it — nothing  of  its  terrors.  Truly,  poor  Frobel 
was  right:  It  was  not  easy  to  think  oneself  the 
like  of  a  trench  spade.  And  yet  it  was  so.  A 
survivor  who  might  put  one  foot  on  a  broken 
shaft  and  the  other  on  the  dead  breast  of  George 
Gadsky  would  .  .  . 

He  sprang  up  wildly,  enraged  at  himself  and 
gazed  over  the  top  of  the  trench  out  into  the 
field.  He  saw  emptiness.  Only  the  nearest  posts, 
only  the  hillocks  immediately  in  front  of  the 
trench  stood  out  in  the  darkness  shot  with 
silvery  gray. 

183 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

And  beyond  there,  behind  the  curtain  which 
still  protected  both — there  sat  the  others.  There 
sat  men,  holding  their  heads  in  their  hands, 
dreading  the  morning  like  himself.  They  might 
conceivably  be  acquaintances,  even  friends  of 
his;  there  might  be  crouching  there  the  son  of 
a'  Frenchwoman  who  had  once  kissed  him  with 
such  fevered  lips.  And  perhaps  some  one  who 
had  admired  him  in  Paris  and  pressed  his  hands 
enthusiastically  would  strike  him  down  to-day 
with  rifle  butt  or  bayonet  like  a  mad,  dangerous 
beast.  Why? 

Was  that  not  madness?  Was  that  not  the  very 
blindness  of  unreason? 

His  thoughts  glided  back  to  his  first  hand- 
to-hand  fight — the  only  one  that  he  had  gone 
through.  His  groping  expectation  was  con- 
stantly being  pushed  out  of  consciousness  by 
memory  until  he  re-lived  all  the  horrors  of  that 
first  fight  anew  and  also  transposed  it  into  the 
future.  He  did  not  recall  many  details  for,  from 
that  moment  in  which,  without  any  protection, 
he  had  stormed  out  across  the  open  plain,  a 
strange  security  had  mastered  him  as  though  the 
government  of  his  limbs  had  been  transferred  to 
some  one  outside  of  himself.  He  had  heard  his 
blood  roar  in  his  ears  and  a  red  curtain  had 
descended  over  his  eyes,  so  that  he  neither  heard 
nor  saw  but  yielded  passively  to  that  other  who 
was  leading  him.  He  ran  as  though  a  wire  were 
pulling  him,  lifted  his  arm  in  defense,  as  though 
some  one  else  had  pulled  it  upward  and  struck 
184 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

out  with  a  rage  which  came  from  his  mind  and 
yet  not  from  it  ...  What  had  that  impulse 
been?  The  will  to  live?  The  blind  passion  to 
survive?  He  didn't  know.  The  whole  thing 
smoldered  in  his  memory  like  a  mystery  that  one 
hesitated  to  touch.  But  he  had  a  keen  recollec- 
tion of  the  moment  of  awakening  and  of  the  hor- 
ror he  had  felt  at  the  sight  of  his  blood-flecked 
hands. 

Would  it  return  at  the  moment  of  supreme 
danger — that  feeling  of  mystic  security? 

He  looked  about  him  and  by  now  he  could  see 
the  whole  of  the  straight  trench  and  every  pack 
and  rifle  was  clearly  distinguishable. 

Day  was  no  longer  far  away. 

He  shivered  and  moved  from  the  trench  wall 
that  had  given  him  support  and  started  to  return 
to  the  dugout.  There  was  no  chance  of  sleep 
out  here.  The  fresh  and  vigorous  morning  air 
awakened  all  his  senses.  He  meant  to  go  down 
there  where  the  brooding  of  the  others,  the  at- 
mosphere of  their  dread  might  descend  like  a 
heavy  fog  upon  his  eyes  and  brain. 

Half  way  to  the  dugout  he  was  overtaken  by  a 
shrill,  whining  scream  that  suddenly  arose  in 
the  distance  and  slowly  came  toward  them. 
Heavy  shells!  .  .  .  He  stopped  with  that  hard, 
keen  tension  in  his  face  that  even  after  a  thou- 
sand experiences  still  convulsed  soul  and  body. 
.  .  .  The  grenades  fell  only  a  few  yards  short; 
they  caused  the  posts  of  the  wire  entanglements 
to  rise  to  dizzy  heights  and  strewed  a  hail  of 

185 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

earth  and  stone  across  Gadsky's  path.  From 
every  corner  about  him  soldiers  emerged,  some 
with  the  sleep  still  in  their  eyes  and  dragging 
their  blankets  behind  them.  Like  frightened 
game  they  came  from  under  their  cover.  Gadsky 
was  drawn  along  by  the  gathering  mass,  was 
caught  by  the  air  pressure  of  another  grenade 
and  hurled  against  the  trench  wall,  heard  a 
creaking  and  bursting  behind  him,  a  cry,  and  ran 
on  without  glancing  back. 

At  the  door  of  the  dugout  stood  the  senior 
lieutenant,  affecting  entire  calm  and  thoroughly 
immersed  in  a  conversation  with  the  sergeant. 
From  afar  Gadsky  saw  his  jeering,  challenging 
smile  that  met  him  and  at  once  resumed  a  normal 
pace.  He  passed  the  two  quite  slowly,  threw 
back  his  head  defiantly  and  heard  the  lieuten- 
ant's biting  words:  "Why  don't  you  hurry? 
Late  for  something?" 

What  was  it  Frobel  had  said:  "Is  my  life  of 
less  value  than  an  appreciative  word  from  the 
captain?" 

If  any  one  had  told  Gadsky  one  short  year 
ago — that  he,  of  all  people,  would  assume  a 
hypocritical  demeanor  in  the  very  face  of  death 
for  the  sake  of  an  insignificant  little  bank-clerk 
whose  shoulder  strap  bore  a  silver  bauble ! 

With  compressed  lips,  with  infinite  anger 
against  himself  and  those  others  who  caused 
men,  ai  though  they  were  trained  dogs,  to  jump 
through  flaming  hoops,  he  crept  into  the  dugout 
and,  utterly  weary,  fell  down  on  his  straw  mat- 
186 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

tress.  Yes,  he  was  tired — tired,  above  all,  of  this 
senseless  comedy,  this  wretched  game  which 
would  have  been  so  unspeakably  trivial  and  con- 
temptible if  it  had  not  been  for  all  the  blood 
.  .  .  He  looked  up.  He  felt  oppressed  by  the- 
bodies  of  all  the  men  who  seemed  to  drag  his 
strength  out  of  him;  he  felt  buried  as  in  a 
forest  .  .  . 

The  dugout  was  crowded.  One  could  scarcely 
stir  one's  arm  without  irritating  one's  neighbor. 
It  was  a  great  coil  of  troubled  faces,  a  heap  of 
men  in  utter  dread  tied  to  each  other  by  that 
common  fear.  "Negligible  losses,"  Gadsky  mur- 
mured to  himself.  "Oh,  yes,  negligible  .  .  ." 

He  looked  at  them  again  and  nodded.  Then  he 
closed  his  eyes,  unable  to  bear  the  sight  any 
longer.  For  a  second  the  mad  suspicion  flamed 
up  in  him  that  it  must,  after  all,  be  but  an  evil 
dream.  Life  here  was  but  one  cry  for  an  awaken- 
ing from  it — for  a  disappearance  of  the  wires 
and  the  helmets  and  all  the  useless  pain.  He 
could  almost  have  smiled  to  welcome  that  awak- 
ening. Then  he  turned  his  head  to  one  side — 
and  fell  asleep. 

Above  him  the  grenades  hammered.  Every 
moment  the  opening  of  the  dugout  might  col- 
lapse or  be  buried.  With  every  explosion  the 
faces  there  grew  paler  at  the  vision  of  being 
stamped  out  or  drowned  in  a  flood  of  earth. 
Gadsky  slept.  Oppressed  by  the  thick  atmos- 
phere of  the  overcrowded  cave  a  snake-like  coil 
of  dream  images  whirled  through  his  brain.  He* 

187 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

saw  his  own  body  lying  in  the  field,  reduced  to  a 
little  heap  like  that  of  the  Frenchman.  He  recog- 
nized himself  and  heard  the  others  in  the  trench 
discuss  his  death  and  so  he  was  glad  to  know 
that  all  consciousness  did  not  depart  with  life. 
The  only  thing  that  pained  him  was  that  he 
couldn't  remember  dying  at  all.  He  tried  and 
tried.  He  wanted  to  know  whether  the  extinc- 
tion of  life  had  been  painful  or  whether,  perhaps, 
it  had  been  less  terrible  than  one  imagined,  and 
he  was  angry  over  his  own  forgetfulness.  What 
was  to  be  done  now?  He  couldn't  die  a  second 
time!  Was  the  uncertainty  to  weigh  him  down 
always?  He  tried  with  all  his  might  to  remem- 
ber and  then  the  scene  changed  and  merged  into 
one  in  which  he  was  a  prisoner  of  the  enemy  and 
was  surrounded  by  all  his  Parisian  friends. 
They  were  all  there,  even  the  women,  and  were 
all  dressed  in  the  queerest  uniforms  and  took 
him  by  the  hand  and  did  not  seem  hostile  at  all. 
But  he  breathed  more  easily  when  his  old  friend 
and  patron  the  Marquis  de  Puys,  in  a  general's 
uniform  ablaze  with  decorations,  scattered  the 
throng  of  the  others  and  led  him  out  to  his  car. 
He  knew  perfectly  (within  the  dream)  that  the 
old  gentleman  had  died  before  the  war  and  that 
at  the  request  of  the  family  he  himself  had 
played  the  organ — a  thing  he  rarely  did — at  the 
solemn  requiem  mass  in  the  Madeleine !  And  the 
thought  came  to  him  to  ask  the  general  concern- 
ing the  latter's  experience  of  death.  But  the  car 
drove  on  with  such  mad  swiftness  that  the  rush 
188 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

of  the  air  made  it  impossible  for  him  to  utter  a 
word.  He  heard  the  thunder  of  the  motor,  held 
fast  to  the  car  and  flew  suddenly — sobbing  with 
the  blessedness  of  it — into  Mathilde's  arms.  He 
drew  her  along  with  him,  up  a  great  stairway 
and  into  glittering  halls  that  merged  into  dark- 
ness behind  them  and  led  her  to  a  piano.  He 
cried  out  in  wild  delight  as  his  fingers  touched 
the  blessed  keys  again  and  then,  with  a  roar  of 
pain  and  horror,  observed  suddenly  that  both  of 
his  legs  had  been  amputated  far  above  the  knees. 
The  tiny  stumps  that  remained  could  not  reach 
the  pedals,  try  as  he  would.  Beside  himself,  he 
hammered  with  his  fists  down  on  the  accursed 
instrument  and  shrieked  with  pain  and  rage — 
and  woke  up. 

Astonished  he  looked  about,  pursued  by  his 
own  terrible  cry  which  now  came  from  quite 
near  him  and  from  other  lips.  The  senior  lieu- 
tenant lay  not  two  feet  from  him,  swimming  in 
his  own  blood,  unspeakably  mutilated,  convul- 
sively trying  to  free  his  hands  and  plunge  them 
into  the  great  scarlet  hole  that  cleft  his  abdo- 
men. Gradually,  too,  Gadsky  recognized  the  cap- 
tain who  was  bending  over  his  fellow-officer  with 
a  careworn  face.  He  jumped  up.  What  had  hap- 
pened? Didn't  the  captain  too  have  bloody 
scratches  on  his  forehead?  A  grenade  must  have 
hit  the  officers'  dugout ! 

And  Kriilow?  The  fright  went  through  his 
body  like  a  blade.  Where  was  Kriilow?  In  wild 
haste  his  eyes  searched  the  room  and  the  world 

189 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

swayed  with  him  as  he  recognized  nowhere  the 
dear,  small  head  of  his  friend.  He  made  his  way 
forward  through  the  crowd  at  the  entrance.  In 
vain.  He  leaned  against  the  wall  of  the  trench, 
scarcely  mastering  the  sobs  that  arose  in  his 
throat.  He  made  the  difficult  decision  to  question 
the  sergeant  who  was  covered  with  earth  and 
who  must  have  witnessed  the  happening.  That 
stern  individual  looked  him  over  coldly  but  fi- 
nally condescended  to  give  some  information. 
The  ensign  had  had  the  extraordinary  good  luck 
of  having  been  ordered  out  of  the  dugout  an  hour 
ago  and  sent  on  a  special  "mission."  The  ser- 
geant made  no  indication  as  to  the  character  of 
the  "mission."  But  it  was  evidently  a  matter 
touching  their  cooperation  with  another  bat- 
talion since  the  sergeant  mentioned  the  name  of 
a  young  lieutenant  who  belonged  to  it. 

Deeply  relieved  Gadsky  withdrew,  straining 
every  nerve  not  to  permit  a  certain  emotion  to 
rise  into  the  field  of  consciousness.  He  would 
not,  would  not  envy  his  friend.  He  drove  the 
thought  away  and  yet  heard  the  word  "saved" 
ring  in  his  ears  as  from  the  blast  of  a  bugle. 

Was  he  envious?  Envious?  No!  God  knows 
he  was  glad  the  dear,  warm-hearted  boy  would 
live- 
As  from  the  window  of  an  express  train  he 
saw  again  the  hospital  garden  of  his  vision  and 
the  ensign  and  the  two  others  behind  the  hedge 
of  lilacs.  And  he  tore  himself  away  from  the 
vision  and  from  the  loathsomeness  of  his  envious 
190 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

yearning.  Convulsively  he  sought  for  some  diver- 
sion and  looked  back  into  the  dugout  where  now 
an  officer's  coat  had  been  thrown  over  a  stirless 
heap  upon  the  ground.  How  mysterious  was 
that  quiet.  Among  an  hundred  sleepers,  each 
covered  by  an  identical  coat,  he  would  have  un- 
dertaken at  once  to  point  out  the  coat  that 
covered  a  dead  man,  so  cruel  was  the  stillness 
that  lay  within  its  folds.  Less  than  an  hour  ago 
this  man  had  jeered  at  another  fleeing  from 
death;  he  had  thus  jeered  at  death  itself.  And 
now  he  was  the  first  to  have  reached  this  goal. 
The  grenades  that  from  time  to  time  plunged  so 
deep  into  the  neighboring  earth  that  the  dugout 
swayed  like  a  ship's  cabin  would  trouble  him  no 
more.  If  the  secret  "mission"  led  through  the 
fire  that  was  going  on  now,  poor  Kriilow's  luck 
wasn't  so  remarkable.  Perhaps,  who  could  tell? 
he  lay  even  now  in  some  crater — lay  like  this 
man  .  .  . 

Luck?  What  did  it  mean  now?  A  clean  bullet 
through  one's  head. 

What  had  become  of  the  little  "vaudeville 
man,"  he  wondered.  He  looked  about  and  his 
eyes  rested  suddenly  on  an  extraordinary  scene : 
the  corporal  on  duty  stood  in  one  corner,  bent 
over  and  talking  to  some  one  invisible.  He  ges- 
ticulated, drew  his  hand  across  his  forehead, 
tried  to  drag  the  invisible  man  up  by  force  and 
ever  again  threw  an  anxious  glance  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  captain. 

Gadsky  was  curious.  He  approached  and  rec- 

191 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

ognized  in  the  supine  figure  the  "Capuchin"  who 
had  joined  the  battalion  shortly  before  its  de- 
parture to  the  front  and  who,  usually,  conde- 
scended to  speak  to  no  one.  He  now  crouched  on 
the  earth,  pale  as  a  sheet,  his  missal  and  his 
rosary  clutched  in  his  fleshy  fingers  and  only 
from  time  to  time  shook  his  head  stubbornly. 
A  chill  stole  over  Gadsky.  The  "Capuchin"  was 
refusing  obedience  in  the  very  face  of  the  enemy 
and  would  not  go  up  into  the  trench !  It  was  his 
turn  for  sentry  duty  and  he — refused!  If  only 
the  captain  would  not  notice.  Of  course  he  was 
quite  right.  As  long  as  the  heavy  calibered  guns 
hammered  this  way  the  enemy  wouldn't  leave  his 
trenches.  But  the  captain!  Anxiously  Gadsky 
followed  the  corporal's  eyes.  Fortunately  the 
captain  was  attending  eagerly  to  something  else. 

"I'm  not  going,"  the  "Capuchin"  suddenly  de- 
clared at  the  top  of  his  voice.  At  once  every- 
body turned  around  and  all  eyes  were  directed 
toward  that  corner. 

The  forehead  of  the  corporal  was  moist  from 
his  efforts.  He  threw  up  his  arms  in  despair  and 
declared  in  an  angry  voice :  "All  right  then.  It's 
not  my  fault — not  mine!" 

Gadsky  motioned  to  the  man.  His  action  was 
utterly  senseless.  But  he  didn't  move.  He 
pressed  his  rosary  to  his  breast  and  shook  his 
hairy  head. 

They  told  the  story  in  the  battalion  that  the 
man  had  really  been  a  father  of  the  Capuchin 
order  and  had  thrown  his  robe  and  cowl  aside 
192 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

shortly  before  the  war  in  order  to  be  able  to 
marry.  And  suddenly  Gadsky  remembered  that 
on  the  way  from  the  barracks  to  the  station  a 
pale  blonde  woman  had  marched  next  to  the 
bearded  man.  And  had  she  not  been  with  child? 
The  bull-necked  giant  looked  quite  like  one  who 
might  tear  down  the  structure  of  his  life  for  the 
sake  of  a  woman.  And  was  he  anxious  now  to 
fling  that  life  away  since  the  war  had  so  soon 
shattered  his  hard- won  happiness? 

Gadsky's  glance  pierced  that  pallid  face.  He 
wanted  to  go  over  to  him.  But  it  would  have 
been  too  noticeable  since  he  stood  halfway  be- 
tween the  captain  and  the  strange  man.  Why, 
he  asked  himself  regretfully,  had  he  happened 
never  to  have  exchanged  a  single  word  with  him  ? 

"I'm  not  going !"  For  a  second  time  the  words 
echoed  through  the  place  and  cut  the  mounting 
silence  so  sharply  that  Gadsky  abandoned  hope 
and  turned  aside.  Yet  something  in  him  plead 
for  a  respite — some  kind,  from  anywhere — as  it 
had  done  when  he  was  a  child  and  had  not 
known  his  lesson  and  had  seen  the  teacher  ap- 
proach his  name  in  the  class  book.  Only  the  con- 
versation of  the  captain  could  now  be  heard  in 
the  silence.  "No,  oh,  no !"  something  said  in  Gad- 
sky.  But  already  the  fatal  sentence  sounded 
from  the  captain's  lips  and  stopped  all  hearts  as 
though  they  were  ticking  watches. 

"What's  the  matter  over  there?"  Oh,  how  he 
disliked  that  harsh,  official  voice.  The  bearded 
man  arose  slowly.  The  silence  grew  tenser  and 

193 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

uglier  with  every  moment.  The  corporal  ap- 
proached the  captain  and  stammered  out  his  re- 
port with  tired,  unhappy  gestures.  Then  the 
Capuchin  opened  his  lips  and  flung  the  words 
"I  will  not  go,"  like  sharp  stones  straight  into 
the  captain's  face. 

The  captain  drew  back.  His  jaws  set  like 
steel.  He  seemed  to  bark  out  his  words.  The 
bearded  man  wrapped  himself  in  his  silence.  It 
was  not  until  the  captain  laid  his  hand  on  his 
revolver  and  repeated  his  question  that  a  scarcely 
noticeable  trembling  went  through  the  man's 
mighty  body  and  his  pale  lips  rolled  the  word 
"no!"  like  a  fragment  of  rock  to  the  captain's 
feet. 

An  invisible  noose  seemed  to  strangle  every 
man  present.  Immovable  stood  those  hundred 
figures  and  endured  with  a  dull  defiance  the  keen 
eyes  of  the  captain  that  searched  their  rows. 
The  silence  seemed  to  arise  like  a  beast  with  an 
hundred  claws  ready  to  fall  upon  the  tamer  who, 
with  a  quick  decision,  raised  his  revolver  and 
took  aim. 

Gadsky  closed  his  eyes  and  held  his  ears.  But 
the  report  did  not  ring  out.  The  captain  lowered 
his  weapon  and  cried  out :  "I  shall  not  even  let 
your  body  fall  among  loyal  men,  you  dog !"  And 
his  voice  rose  to  a  still  higher  pitch  as  he  gave 
the  order:  "Officer  Frobel  and  five  men  to  form 
a  firing-squad !" 

Gadsky  started.  That — that  was  impossible! 
Frobel?  Karl  Frobel  who  had  embraced  his 
194 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

kneea  in  his  extreme  and  unmanly  fear !  He  was 
to  execute  this  man?  No!  His  eyes  dilated  with 
terror  and  disgust  as  the  form  of  Frobel  actually 
emerged  from  a  corner  and  approached  falter- 
ingly  as  a  flame  that  flickers  in  the  wind.  Would 
he  really  .  .  .  really.  .  .  ? 

The  captain's  eyes  leaped  about  the  room  but 
no  other  man  stepped  forth.  They  stood  in 
somber,  silent  groups  and  a  deadly  hatred 
seemed  suddenly  to  beat  into  the  captain's  face. 
The  latter  muttered  an  incomprehensible  curse 
and  with  a  wave  of  his  hand  separated  from  their 
fellows  the  five  men  who  stood  nearest  to  him. 

And  at  this  fatal  moment  of  highest  tension, 
as  Gadsky  was  slowly  approaching  Frobel  and 
struggling  with  the  determination  to  put  him  to 
an  ultimate  human  test — into  this  throttling  ex- 
citement there  burst  a  miracle. 

The  bearded  man  lifted  up  his  voice  and  sang. 
Sang  with  a  wonderful  and  mellow  voice,  with 
a  warm,  rich  baritone  that  streamed  from  his 
mouth  golden-clear  as  wild  honey — sang  with  a 
voice  that  rose  to  the  ceiling  and  burst  it  and 
brought  sunshine  and  mountain  air  into  that 
suffocating  hole.  He  sang  an  Ave  Maria  and  the 
prayer  spread  out  its  wings  and  came  beseech- 
ingly and  bathed  in  tears,  yet  also  radiantly 
from  his  throat — came  with  the  sweet  and  heavy 
softness  as  from  an  old  'cello  whose  heart  the 
centuries  had  stained  and  mellowed. 

Gadsky  threw  wide  his  arms  as  to  embrace 
his  beloved.  "Music !"  "Music !"  his  heart  spoke 

195 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

jubilantly.  He  glowed  with  a  blessed  pride  as 
though  he  were  father  and  son  and  brother  of 
this  voice,  and  in  his  eyes  there  was  a  challenge 
and  a  mighty  boast  as  though  he  would  have  all 
men  acknowledge  on  their  knees  the  magic  of  his 
art — his  art. 

"Et  benedicta  tu!"  the  jubilant  voice  rose 
higher  and  the  singer  crossed  the  threshold 
which  he  seemed  to  raise  into  the  radiance  of  his 
voice  and  drew  them  all  with  him  and  took  the 
heaviness  from  the  earthen  faces  and  stagnant 
limbs  about  him,  so  that  they  felt  the  earth  blos- 
som at  their  feet  and  clung  to  this  voice  and  let 
their  souls  be  carried  by  it  out  of  that  cave  and 
far  away  from  stench  and  fear.  .  .  . 

"Music !"  Gadsky's  heart  felt  triumphant.  He 
gazed  at  the  captain  and  a  hot  gratitude  filled 
his  eyes,  for  even  that  hard  face  was  struggling 
to  maintain  its  harshness  and  the  command  that 
urged  the  firing-squad  forward  sounded  more 
like  a  cry  for  help  than  a  threat. 

A  master's  bow  passed  over  the  strings  of 
that  divine  instrument  as  it  sobbed  out  to  the 
Mother  of  God:  "Ora  pro  nobis,  nobis  pec- 
catoribus!"  And  each  man's  breath  stopped  as 
though  the  singer  were  taking  it  from  him,  only 
to  let  it  pour  back  dipped  in  a  golden  endless 
melody. 

Gadsky  closed  his  eyes.  He  heard  the  accom- 
paniment in  his  inner  ear,  and  his  fingers  played 
on  invisible  keys  and  wove  the  dark,  great  web 
of  organ  tones  until  the  austere  measures  arose 
196 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

like  a  forest  of  noble  firs  from  whose  sides  poured 
the  clear  ichor  of  this  most  blessed  human 
voice. 

He  went  forth  and  followed  the  song  as  though 
it  were  a  procession  and  he  a  neophyte  and  he 
had  long,  long  forgotten  whither  that  voice  was 
traveling.  He  had  forgotten  death,  the  captain, 
the  six  rifles,  the  singer's  fate.  His  body  and  his 
soul  vibrated  to  the  tones.  "Will  he  take  the 
high  C  too?"  That  was  his  only  thought  and  his 
muscles  grew  tense  as  though  he  could  help  the 
singer  climb  the  divine  height. 

Ah,  he  took  it!  The  tone  seemed  indeed  to 
come  from  above  first  with  a  threatening  quiver, 
then  in  a  glorified  clearness. 

Gadsky  gave  himself  up  to  the  beauty  of  it. 
Then  he  shook,  for  the  voice  suddenly  grew 
smaller  as  though  it  were  now  but  an  echo  of 
itself  or  had  been  sucked  up  by  the  depth  of  the 
dark  trench.  Then  it  ceased.  There  resounded 
the  fourfold  crack  of  rifle-fire.  A  fifth  detonation 
limped  behind.  A  harsh  voice  cried:  "You 
cowardly  crew!  Do  you  want  to  close  up  the 
entrance?" 

It  took  a  while  for  Gadsky  to  comprehend.  At 
first  he  couldn't  believe  that  so  much  glory  could 
be  destroyed,  could  be  smashed  as  simply  as  a 
pane  of  glass.  Then  he  cried  out,  beside  himself. 
He  stormed  along  with  clenched  fists  and  wanted 
to  throttle  those  vile  murderers  who  had  broken 
the  holy  instrument  that  God  the  Father  seemed 
to  have  been  playing  upon  His  own  knee. 

197 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

Four  strong  arms  thrust  him  back  and  a  wild 
whispering  beat  down  upon  him  until  sobbing, 
forgetful  of  his  purpose  and  exhausted,  he  sank 
down  in  his  corner. 

A  fluttering  and  hoarse  cry  of  command  rolled 
through  the  cave  which  had  just  echoed  the 
divine  music.  The  ultimate  hour  had  come.  The 
voice  wakened  a  hundred  fold  echo  that  brought 
Gadsky  to  his  feet  too.  He  permitted  himself 
to  be  shoved  and  dragged  to  the  entrance  by  the 
scrambling  crowd  and  took  a  deep  breath  as  the 
cold,  vigorous  air  of  the  trench  filled  his  lungs. 
Now  he  woke  up.  One  moment  he  stood  still, 
overwhelmed  by  the  comfortless  devastation  all 
about  him.  He  saw  the  singer  lying  there,  blood 
on  his  beard,  the  blessed  lips  still  open.  .  .  . 
Then  he  heard  the  captain's  voice  snap  out  and, 
as  on  that  other  occasion,  a  strange  exterior  will 
asserted  itself  over  him  and  hurled  him  to  the 
breastworks  into  the  face  of  danger. 

Blue  as  the  sea  on  the  Cote  d'Azur  he  saw 
the  wave  of  attacking  Frenchmen  pour  over  hills 
and  shell  craters  with  breathless  swiftness.  His 
blood  hammered.  Involuntarily  he  loosened  his 
collar.  For  a  moment  he  was  strangely  moved  as 
he  heard  from  the  approaching  troops  the  hoarse 
strains  of  the  "Marseillaise."  How  often  had  he 
played  it  and  with  his  magic  technique  rolled 
marvelous  variations  of  it  across  the  keys.  And 
now  that  melody  fell  upon  him  like  a  mad  dog 
with  a  hundred  sharp  teeth  of  polished  steel. 

He  would  defend  himself ! 
198 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

Exalted  by  this  resolution  he  jerked  his  rifle 
to  his  shoulder,  took  aim  and  fired.  He  con- 
tinued to  fire  calmly  at  the  first  line  of  the  blue 
wave;  he  fired  as  firmly  as  though  all  the  ener- 
gies of  his  body  had  gathered  in  his  hands.  But 
the  flood  came  nearer  and  nearer.  Bits  of  earth 
that  had  just  seemed  far  from  them  shimmered 
blue  at  the  next  moment.  Gadsky  kept  firing  and 
took  a  new  magazine  from  his  pocket  with  me- 
chanical exactness.  He  was  animated  by  the  one 
thought  now :  His  life  was  at  stake. 

"Formez  vos  'bataillons!"  it  sounded  clearly 
from  amid  the  rough  voices.  A  certain  hardness 
in  the  singing,  a  certain  relentlessness  awakened 
Gadsky's  defiance.  He  cried  out  toward  them: 
"No!"  He  cried  out  toward  those  men  who 
marched  up  so  bravely  to  what  they  thought  the 
fine  task  of  cutting  George  Gadsky's  throat. 
No,  they  should  not  succeed,  they  should  not  get 
him.  Not  as  long  as  he  could  stir  a  finger. 
"Sing  on,"  he  cried,  "I'll  spoil  your  singing  for 
you !"  A  strange  intoxication  had  come  upon 
him.  Almost  painfully  his  hands  grasped  his 
rifle.  He  aimed  and  fired,  aimed  and  fired.  His 
eager  eyes  tried  to  persuade  him  that  the  blue 
line  was  thinning  out.  But  the  accursed  wave 
did  not  sicker  into  the  sand.  It  was  too  great 
a  wave,  composed  of  too  many  drops,  and  it 
rolled  over  the  field,  rolled  over  the  brown  fur- 
rows and  came  nearer  and  nearer  despite  the 
many  splashes  of  forever  moveless  blue  which  it 
was  forced  to  leave  behind. 

199 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

"Qu'un  sang  impur"  they  roared,  almost  upon 
him  now.  And  those  words  which  Gadsky,  even 
in  times  of  peace,  had  always  thought  ignoble, 
made  a  great  rage  flame  up  in  him  now,  so 
strong  that  he  could  control  himself  no  longer, 
but  had  to  utter  it  in  words.  "We  shall  see — 
sang  impur,  sang  impur — Yes,  it  shall  mix  with 
yours,  my  "unclean  blood" — it  shall  mix,  it  shall 
mix !"  And  he  repeated  the  phrase  blindly  after 
each  shot. 

Now  they  no  longer  permitted  themselves  to 
be  merely  shot  down.  They  were  near  enough  to 
let  a  hail  storm  of  hand-grenades  rattle  down  on 
the  trench.  The  first  grenades  fell  short;  Gad- 
sky  saw  them  burst,  tear  up  the  earth,  hurl 
earth  and  stones  into  the  air  and  his  whole  body 
trembled  with  a  sudden  access  of  measureless 
bitterness  and  rage.  Just  so  they  wanted  to  tear 
open  his  warm  and  living  body,  thus  were  his 
life  and  his  blood  to  be  flung  out  to  spatter  the 
earth. 

They  worked  their  way  agonizedly  through 
the  wire  entanglements,  pulled  down  the  stakes, 
trod  on  the  wires,  came  nearer  and  nearer !  Most 
of  them  had  long  ceased  singing.  Here  and  there 
a  single  voice  still  croaked  miserably,  but  was 
soon  lost  in  the  moans  and  cries  and  whines  of 
the  wounded  men  who  struggled  like  gigantic 
insects  in  the  wires  and  were  pitilessly  stamped 
into  the  mud  by  their  fellows  who  came  behind 
them.  But  they  came  nearer  and  nearer.  And 
above  the  bursting  of  the  hand-grenades  he  could 
200 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

now  hear  out  of  his  own  trench  the  moaning  and 
crying  of  his  stricken  comrades. 

A  wild  curse  escaped  him  when  he  found  no 
munition  left  in  his  belt.  Some  one  must  help  him 
out!  He  turned  around  and  his  blood  froze  at 
the  sight  of  the  gaps  that  had  been  torn  in  the 
ranks.  So  many  and  so  soon !  The  whole  bottom 
of  the  trench  was  filled  with  a  coil  of  creeping 
men  and  bloody  limbs  stretched  out  in  horrible 
confusion.  Here  and  there  one  sat  erect  and  with 
an  unspeakable  melancholy  regarded  his  wound. 
Oh,  was  it  conceivable  that  fate  permitted  men 
to  be  so  tormented  and  stamped  upon  and  scat- 
tered on  the  earth  like  refuse !  The  words  of 
Krtilow  thundered  their  silent  message  into  Gad- 
sky's  ear  out  of  this  cave  of  death  and  lamenta- 
tion, and  from  his  innermost  depth  there  arose 
a  helpless  sobbing  and  an  uncontrollable  indig- 
nation, and  tears  of  pain  and  rage  leaped  from 
him  as  from  a  child  that  feels  the  pain  of  an 
undeserved  punishment. 

"Scoundrels !"  he  cried  out  into  the  deafening 
hubbub  and  felt  himself  exalted  and  lifted  up 
almost  physically  by  a  sudden,  nameless  hatred. 
Oh,  if  he  could  only  have  taken  all  the  men,  all, 
in  every  land  of  earth  who  had  helped  to  spread 
this  bloody  carpet  at  his  feet,  who  had  helped  to 
weave  it,  who  rejoiced  in  their  work  and  sought 
to  cover  it  with  an  illusion  of  false  glamor — if 
he  could  have  grasped  them  and  pressed  and 
stamped  them  into  this  morass  of  lacerated 
human  flesh.  .  .  . 

201 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

"Scoundrels!"  he  roared  hoarsely  and  almost 
unconscious  from  the  pitiable  whining  and  moan- 
ing that  flowed  into  him  from  the  trench  behind. 
But  that  strange  power  that  once  again  led  him 
to  his  own  defense  drew  him  to  the  pile  of  hand- 
grenades  that  lay  a  few  feet  away  against  the 
wall.  He  let  his  rifle  drag  behind  him  and  sprang 
toward  the  grenades  and  knew  only  in  a  dream- 
like and  detached  way  that  his  soles  had  trodden 
upon  living  flesh.  But  he  was  in  a  hurry.  He 
heard  those  others  above;  he  knew  the  sharp 
teeth  that  were  ready  for  his  flesh.  He  gathered 
as  many  of  the  grenades  as  he  could  hold  and 
started  back. 

But  suddenly  he  stood  still.  For  his  feet  were 
entangled  in  an  unearthly  grasp.  He  stared 
down  and  he  thought  that  his  eyes  would  turn 
to  stone.  For  what  held  him  was  the  dead  hand 
of  a  mutilated  man.  And  the  man  was  Frobel — 
was  what  had  once  been  Karl  Frobel  and  was 
now  but  a  mass  of  blood  and  filth  and  earth. 
Nothing  of  him  remained  recognizable  save  the 
right  half  of  his  face  which  seemed  yet,  in  the 
rigidity  of  death,  to  cry  out  its  reproach  at  him. 
Ah,  what  could  he  have  done?  Was  not  an  equal 
fate  awaiting  him?  Did  he  not  have  to  carry  his 
own  body  with  its  resisting  instincts  into  the 
slaughter?  Might  he  not  rather  envy  him  who 
had  already  suffered  the  inevitable  and  was  now 
at  peace? 

And  that  strange  envy  did  come  to  him  and 
stole  into  his  very  marrow  so  that  for  a  moment, 
202 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

devoid  of  all  will,  he  stared  at  the  mangled  body 
of  the  man — that  body  which  now  had  nothing 
more  to  fear  of  pain  or  of  indignity.  And  then 
he  remembered  that  other's  words.  Yes,  yes,  it 
was  possible,  it  was  so!  Karl  Frobel  was  no 
more.  There  was  a  thing  ...  a  log.  .  .  . 

Wildly  he  tore  himself  free  and  followed  the 
others  who  clambered  up  the  ladders  and  rude 
steps  and  helped  each  other  over  the  edge  so  as 
not  to  perish  in  the  trench  like  rats  in  a  hole. 
Gasping  under  the  burden  of  grenades  which  he 
had  assumed  Gadsky  climbed  over  the  top  of  the 
trench.  When  he  arrived  he  was  so  filled  with 
a  feeling  that  he  had  come  too  late  that,  without 
looking  about,  he  stormed  forward  toward  the 
blue  ranks  of  the  enemy. 

He  plunged  madly  into  that  mass  of  men,  felt 
himself  gripped  and  hurled  aside  and  saw  the 
blue  ranks  roll  on  beyond  him.  He  remained  be- 
hind, dizzy  from  the  blow  he  had  received.  But 
what  had  happened?  He  stood  there  astonished. 
Gradually  he  realized  that  he  had  ventured  forth 
too  far,  that  the  wave  of  men,  drawn  by  the  arms 
and  weapons  that  opposed  it,  had  rolled  past  him 
and  was  now  flowing  forward  toward  his  old 
trench.  Stinging  sweat  seemed  to  pour  over  his 
left  shoulder.  At  last  he  determined  to  look  and 
saw  his  sleeve  ripped  and  bloody  from  a  thrust 
or  blow  that  one  of  the  passing  men  had  given 
him.  But  he  could  still  move  his  arm.  He  let 
his  rifle  slip  from  him  and,  grasping  a  grenade  in 
his  right  hand,  turned  to  pursue  the  enemy.  But 

203 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

he  remained  transfixed  with  contorted  lips  and 
watched  the  madness  that  was  unleashed  before 
him. 

The  lines  both  of  his  comrades  and  of  his 
adversaries  had  definitely  broken.  Isolated  knots 
of  men  that  now  and  then  were  coiled  into 
larger  groups  and  then  separated  again  were 
contending  with  each  other.  There  was  no  sing- 
ing now  on  either  side.  In  silent  bitterness  they 
hammered  at  each  other  and  there  was  no  sound 
except  the  crash  of  rifle-butts  and  the  bursting  of 
bones,  and  the  cries  and  curses  of  the  wounded 
and  the  painful  gasping  and  coughing  of  all 
those  creatures  in  torment.  Gadsky  swung  the 
grenade  above  his  head.  But  he  did  not  dare  to 
hurl  it.  For  he  could  no  longer  aim  at  any  enemy. 
All  clean  division  had  disappeared  in  that  mon- 
strous coil.  Everywhere  there  was  the  inter- 
mingled waving  of  gray  and  blue-clad  arms  like 
the  many  limbs  of  a  variegated  polypus ;  nowhere 
could  he  see  any  mass  of  blue  definite  enough 
to  aim  at. 

Into  his  hesitating  mood  there  burst  from  the 
right  a  cry,  rising  steeply  as  a  rocket,  throttled 
by  the  very  extremity  of  human  fear:  "No! — 
No! — No!"  It  was  a  well-known  voice  and  he 
saw  the  little  "vaudeville"  man  hurled  to  his 
knees  by  an  immensely  tall  Frenchman  who  held 
him  by  the  collar  and  turned  to  another  group  so 
soon  as  he  had  seen  him  fall.  But  a  black- 
bearded  man  in  front  of  him  swung  his  rifle-butt 
high  in  the  air. 
204 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

"No!"  the  tailor  tried  to  cry  out  once  more. 
Gadsky  too  wanted  to  cry  out  and  to  hasten  for- 
ward to  help.  But  he  stood  moveless,  fascinated 
by  the  horror  of  the  whirring  weapon.  A  howl  of 
inhuman  rage  burst  from  him  as  the  blow  fell 
and  crashed  with  a  terrible  cracking  and  grind- 
ing straight  into  the  upturned  face.  His  grenade 
flew  and  a  momentary  relief  loosened  his  rigid 
limbs  as  he  saw  the  bearded  man  burst  open  and 
reel  forward.  But  even  in  that  moment  the  sight 
of  that  destroyed  human  face  had  sunk  im- 
measurably deep  into  his  soul.  This  face  that 
had  been  loved,  that  had  been  longed  for,  that 
had  been  kissed,  had  become  a  single  gaping  hole. 
The  eyes  which  had  but  now  looked  so  beseech- 
ingly, the  curved  nose  that  had  often  brought 
jeers  upon  the  brave  heart,  both  had  been 
crushed  into  that  single,  crimson  hole  framed 
only  by  the  teeth  and  the  dark  hair. 

With  superhuman  force  that  great  anger 
broke  forth  again  in  Gadsky,  that  raging,  sobbing 
and  yet  impersonal  anger  over  a  world  that  let 
such  things  be  done,  that  lay  abed  and  followed 
its  business  while  human  faces  were  obliterated 
with  wooden  clubs.  Oh,  from  whatever  depth 
there  was  in  him  boiled  his  avenging  hatred 
against  all  those  in  all  the  world  who  hid  such 
realities  under  the  boom  of  false  words  and 
taught  children,  whose  fathers  were  being  dis- 
emboweled like  beasts,  words  and  thoughts  con- 
cerning the  glory  and  nobility  of  war ! 

His  grenades  flew  in  rapid  succession  into  the 

205 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

thinning  groups.  He  saw  them  strike  and  even 
while  his  own  bitter  will  to  live  forced  the  others 
into  his  hand,  the  tears  streamed  down  his  face 
and  he  sped  words,  like  arrows,  into  the  rhythm 
of  his  hurling. 

His  grenades  were  nearly  gone.  He  swung  the 
one  before  the  last  above  his  head.  At  that 
moment  the  strange,  impersonal  force  that 
guided  him  in  battle  drew  the  veil  of  tears  and 
hatred  from  his  eyes.  And  he  saw  the  faces,  con- 
torted with  rage,  that  were  separating  them- 
selves from  the  coil  of  men  and  turning  toward 
him  who  had  become  a  new  source  of  danger. 
Swiftly  he  bent  down,  grasped  his  rifle  by  the 
barrel,  swung  it  high  and  ran  to  meet  his  mur- 
derers. Trembling  in  every  limb,  blinded  and 
deafened  by  an  inner  flickering  and  roaring,  he 
struck  and  struck  without  seeing  where  the 
blows  of  his  club  fell.  And  all  he  was  aware  of 
at  this  moment  was  his  own  life,  his  own  life 
surrounded  by  merciless  murderers  who  would 
crash  his  face  into  his  head.  He  must  get  free  of 
their  blows  and  their  claws.  He  wanted  his  life. 
And  he  struck  and  thrust  and  hammered — until 
suddenly  he  stood  in  a  strange  stillness,  alone 
with  his  shaking  knees,  alone  with  the  gasping  of 
his  lungs  and  the  throbbing  of  his  heart. 

"Was  he  saved?"  The  question  flamed  up  in 
his  soul.  He  did  not  dare  to  turn  around.  He 
did  not  dare  to  look  down  upon  the  warm  and 
heavy  weight  that  lay  at  his  feet.  "Was  he 
saved?"  He  asked  himself  again,  doubting  and 
206 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

yet  hopeful.  He  flung  out  his  hand  seeking  for 
some  support,  unable  to  hold  himself  erect, 
seized  by  a  great  dizziness  that  seemed  suddenly 
to  whirl  about  him. 

But  at  that  moment  from  the  distance  a 
familiar  sound  came  to  his  ears.  A  new  wave  of 
blue  was  approaching — a  reenforcement  of  fresh 
men.  And  from  a  hundred  throats  it  thun- 
dered :  "Allans  enfants  de  la  patrie!"  He  let  his 
arms  fall  beside  him  disconsolately,.  Then  a 
determination  flared  up  in  him:  he  would  give 
himself  up.  He  had  done  his  duty.  His  hands, 
his  arms,  his  shoulders,  his  whole  body  was 
bathed  in  blood.  His  skin  and  his  clothes  were 
in  tatters.  His  munition  was  exhausted.  Yes, 
he  had  the  right  to  yield  himself  prisoner. 

But  the  captain? 

His  anger  against  that  harsh  and  limited  intel- 
ligence broke  forth  again.  Because  even  now  the 
man  had  the  power  on  pain  of  death  to  forbid  his 
saving  his  life.  But  where  was  the  captain? 
Was  he  even  alive? 

Blindly  his  eyes  fled  past  the  wounded  and 
the  dead  toward  the  right  wing  where  a  last 
group  was  still  fighting.  Immediately  at  the  edge 
of  the  trench  that  group  still  swayed  back  and 
forth.  Every  now  and  then  a  fragment  of  it 
broke  off  and  fell  backward  into  the  trench  and 
fought  on  there  and  the  roar  of  the  overcome 
was  terrible  to  hear. 

Gadsky  wavered.  Was  he  to  plunge  in  again? 
Was  he  to  risk  his  life  once  more? 

207 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

No!  The  French  reinforcements  that  were 
coming  up  were  tenfold  superior — more  than 
tenfold — to  the  little  group  that  was  still  stf 
desperately  defending  itself.  Even  the  captain 
would  not  demand  .  .  . 

That  coil  of  fight  at  the  trench's  edge  rolled 
nearer.  He  could  see  better  now.  And  anger 
and  disgust  and  also  a  great  compassion  choked 
him  as  he  saw  four  men,  four  bleeding,  lacerated 
men  defend  themselves  against  insuperable  odds. 
One  of  them  was  the  captain.  His  uniform  was 
in  shreds ;  the  skin  of  his  skull  had  been  severed 
and  a  rag  of  it  hung  down  hiding  his  left  eye. 
His  right  eye  was  glassy  and  bloodshot.  But 
he  fought  like  a  wild  boar  at  bay.  They  struck 
at  him  from  all  sides.  He  defended  himself  with 
the  butt  of  a  splintered  rifle,  coughing,  gasping, 
the  bloody  foam  flecking  his  lips  and  face  .  .  . 

At  that  moment  he  must  have  heard  the  sing- 
ing of  the  French  reinforcements.  For  he  uttered 
a  great  cry  and  flung  back  his  head  and  began  to 
sing  hoarsely,  brokenly,  terribly:  "Deutschland, 
Deutschland,  ijiber  Alles,  uber  Alles  ..." 

As  though  upborne  by  invisible  arms  and  flung 
forward,  Gadsky  hurled  himself  toward  that 
group.  So  moving  was  the  disproportion  be- 
tween that  one  croaking  voice  and  the  mighty 
chorus  of  the  enemy,  that  his  compassion  with 
the  weakness  of  that  voice  flooded  and  washed 
away  all  his  scruples.  He  ran,  overcoming  the 
spongy  resistance  of  the  dead  beneath  his  feet, 
208 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

until  midway  he  stopped  and  his  half-uttered 
cry:  "Here,  captain!"  died  on  his  lips. 

It  was  too  late. 

The  long  Frenchman  who  had  first  pulled 
down  the  Jewish  tailor  from  behind  had  crept 
forth  from  the  trench  and,  with  one  vigorous 
thrust,  plunged  a  bayonet  into  the  captain's 
back.  Gadsky  saw  the  point  appear  through  the 
chest  immediately  below  the  neck,  saw  the  cap- 
tain throw  himself  upward  so  that  for  a  moment 
he  dangled  almost  in  mid-air,  and  fall.  Then  he 
turned  swiftly  toward  the  new  ranks  that  were 
approaching,  dropped  his  rifle  and  searched  in 
his  numbed  brain  for  the  words  with  which  he 
would  announce  his  readiness  to  yield.  He  stood 
there  wildly  and  stubbornly  hoping  for  the  sight 
of  some  face  he  knew  among  the  approaching 
Frenchmen. 

Then  a  sudden  stinging  suspicion  that  im- 
mediately became  certainty  smote  upon  him. 
There  was  an  immediate  danger.  The  group  that 
had  overcome  the  captain.  .  .  .  That  tall  French- 
man was  still  behind  him.  He  swung  around  and 
saw  the  tall,  blue  figure  arise  immediately  in 
front  of  him  and  saw  the  narrow,  shining  blade 
rush  toward  his  breast — and  threw  himself  back, 
grasping  the  head  of  his  enemy  with  both 
hands  .  .  . 

The  wild  teeth  bit  into  his  hands:  he  felt  a 
rending  pain  in  his  palms  and  opened  them  with 
the  unutterable  horror  of  the  thought:  "My 
hands  ...  I  can't  play  again"  .  .  .  !  And  he 

209 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

tried  to  stretch  out  his  arms  to  see  if  the  irrep- 
arable had  happened. 

But  all  he  saw  was  two  red  spots  gleam 
through  a  veil.  Then  he  heard  a  deafening  crash- 
ing and  grinding  as  though  his  teeth  were  being 
mashed  to  pulp,  and  a  thunder  behind  his  fore- 
head in  his  very  brain  .  .  .  Wearily  he  let  his 
head  drop  on  his  right  shoulder  and  sank  back 
into  the  darkness  of  night.  .  .  . 


210 


IV 
THE    TRAITOR 


IV 

THE     TRAITOR 

IN  narrow  beams  the  sunlight  fell  in  from 
above,  sharp  and  hot.  It  flowed  over  the 
golden  candelabra  in  front  of  the  altar;  im- 
pudently it  raised  the  saints  from  their  accus- 
tomed darkness  so  that  they  looked  like  rouged 
actors,  helpless  and  intimidated  and  ashamed  of 
their  cheap  gaudiness.  A  single,  stray  shell  had 
succeeded  in  robbing  the  old  church  of  its  con- 
secrated air.  Neither  the  beds  along  the  wall  nor 
the  wretched  pallets  under  the  columns  had 
been  able  to  do  that.  The  place  stared  at  one 
as  naked  as  a  looted  shop.  It  seemed  as  though 
all  the  influences  which  the  faithful  had  brought 
here  during  the  centuries,  the  hopes  they  had 
carried  to  the  altar,  the  burdens  they  had  cast 
aside,  had  taken  flight  through  the  windows 
which  gaped  in  the  walls  like  open  wounds.  For 
the  beautiful  stained  glass  that  had  so  long  kept 
the  echoes  of  perished  song  and  the  sound  of 
priestly  words  from  floating  into  the  godless 
world,  had  been  shattered  by  that  stray,  unaimed 
projectile  and  lay  in  fragments  in  the  little 
graveyard  without. 

Two  sleepy   French   ambulance   men  stirred 

213 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

among  the  fragments  of  glass  with  their  canes, 
deciphered  a  bit  of  an  inscription  now  and  then, 
played  with  the  remnants  of  saints'  pictures  as 
with  a  Chinese  puzzle  and  made  coarse  jests  and 
laughed.  But  soon  they  grew  tired  of  their  game, 
for  the  sun  burned  down  on  the  graveyard  and 
drove  them  back  into  the  shadow  of  the  church 
walls. 

There  they  lay  down  again  on  their  coats, 
their  packs  under  their  heads,  precisely  as  they 
had  lain  yesterday  and  the  day  before,  and 
yawned  and  heard  the  bees  hum  and  took  up 
the  thread  of  their  complaining  where  they  had 
broken  it  off  half  an  hour  ago. 

"Isn't  it  the  craziest  thing?"  grunted  the 
larger  of  the  two,  a  robust,  broad-shouldered 
Walloon  with  a  tangled,  blond  beard.  "At  the 
front  they  hunt  'em  like  rabbits  and  tear  'em  up 
so  they'll  have  hard  time  finding  their  right 
limbs  on  judgment  day.  And  here  in  the  rear 
we've  got  to  watch  so  that  the  damned  bodies 
can  die  quiet  in  the  church.  Not  that  I  care. 
Nothing  can  happen  here.  That  stray  shell  last 
night  is  the  last  we'll  know  of  them.  I  bet  they're 
near  the  Rhine  by  now." 

The  smaller  man  shrugged  his  shoulders  con- 
temptuously, and  threw  a  suspicious  glance  at 
his  comrade.  "You  don't  like  their  grenades,  eh? 
Well,  I'd  rather  have  the  worst  drum  fire  than 
stand  this  church.  They  lie  there  as  dumb  as 
fishes  and  stare  at  you  and  die.  Is  it  a  soldier's 
work  to  sit  here  and  wait  till  they  die  and  are 
214 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

ready  to  be  buried?  By  God,  we  sit  here  like 
two  ravens  waiting  for  carrion." 

The  blond  man  laughed  his  coarse  laugh. 
"You're  right.  They  are  like  the  whitefish  when 
you  tear  the  hook  out  of  their  jaw-bones  and 
let  'em  flop  down  bloody  in  the  boat.  But  what 
do  you  expect  'em  to  say?  Sister  knows  as  little 
German  as  you  or  I.  How  many  are  there,  any- 
how?" 

The  big  man's  loud  cheerfulness  made  his  com- 
panion nervous.  His  face  assumed  a  troubled 
look  and  his  tone  was  vexed.  "They  left  us 
twenty-one  day  before  yesterday.  Since  then 
we've  dug  holes  for  six.  You  know  that  as  well 
as  I.  Two  a  day.  If  it  goes  on  that  way  we'll 
have  to  dig  graves  for  another  week." 

He  spat  and  fell  silent.  His  eyes  sought  the 
distance  where,  beyond  the  ruins  of  the  village 
and  the  shattered  trees,  the  high  road  bounded 
the  horizon  like  a  smoking  line.  There  the 
vehicles  rolled  by — night  and  day,  an  endless 
chain  of  wagons.  Every  now  and  then  a  great 
sudden  whirl  of  smoke,  dark  as  the  sand  column 
whirled  up  by  a  grenade,  betrayed  the  whizzing 
by  of  an  auto.  The  soldier  sighed  wretchedly 
and  brought  his  clenched  fist  down  on  his  hard 
pillow  and  repeated :  "By  God,  like  ravens !" 

But  there  was  no  assent  to  his  words.  His 
comrade  lay  with  open  lips  and  slept.  Thought- 
fully the  small  man  regarded  the  rigid,  expres- 
sionless face,  the  open  gullet,  thought  of  the 
many  bodies  they  had  picked  up  in  the  last  few 

215 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

days  and  was  tempted  to  awaken  his  neighbor 
by  a  vigorous  shake.  But  he  restrained  himself 
and  glanced  once  more  at  the  melancholy  spec- 
tacle before  him — the  wall  of  dust  in  the  dis- 
tance, the  blackened  ruins,  the  torn  graveyard 
with  its  heaps  of  glittering  glass.  Everything 
was  gray,  dispeopled,  vaulted  by  smoke  and 
fume,  bedded  in  deadly  silence.  Not  even  the 
rattle  of  an  automobile  broke  the  stillness.  The 
church  was  too  far  from  the  high  road.  "Like 
a  lonely  island  in  the  middle  of  the  ocean,"  the 
soldier  thdught.  He  threw  himself  angrily  down 
beside  his  companion  and  soon  they  were  both 
snoring. 

Sister  Marie  sat  on  the  highest  step  at  the 
door  of  the  church.  Her  elbow  leaned  upon  her 
drawn-up  knees;  her  chin  rested  on  her  hands. 
Her  careworn  face  gleamed  for  a  moment  when, 
after  a  brief  interruption,  she  heard  the  accus- 
tomed duet  once  more.  It  was  too  comical — tLe 
men's  unlimited  capacity  for  sleep  at  any  time  of 
the  night  or  day.  She  herself  had  scarcely  closed 
an  eye  for  thrice  twenty-four  hours;  she  could 
hardly  hold  herself  up  on  her  burning  soles; 
from  under  her  red  and  swollen  lids  she  stared 
in  a  drugged  way  out  upon  the  blinding  light  of 
the  square. 

She  knew  no  longer  where  to  turn.  A  dozen 
times  at  least  she  had  sent  the  two  men  out  to 
the  road  to  give  her  pressing  message  to  the 
drivers  and  motorcycle  men  and  despatch  bear- 
ers. Perhaps  these  men  had  not  reached  the  hos- 
216 


THE  JUDGMENT  OP  PEACE 

pital  headquarters  in  the  great  confusion;  per- 
haps they  had  simply  forgotten  to  deliver  the 
message.  There  was  no  sense,  at  all  events,  in 
shaking  the  two  men  out  of  their  sleep  and  send- 
ing them  out  still  another  time.  And  they  might 
even  refuse.  For  the  small  man  had  gone  so  far 
in  daring  as  to  stop  an  auto  that  belonged  to  the 
General  Staff  and,  according  to  his  story,  had 
narrowly  escaped  being  shot  by  the  indignant 
major  who  could  not  realize  how,  in  the  midst 
of  a  victorious  advance,  as  he  was  racing  back 
to  the  staff  with  the  most  magnificent  news,  any 
one  could  have  the  impudence  to  stop  him  with 
a  story  about  a  lack  of  medical  supplies  as  if 
he  were  a  damned  pill-slinger.  No,  there  was  no 
hope  in  these  hurrying  men.  They  came  from  the 
front  where  the  bodies  of  men  lay  in  mounds, 
they  drove  past  crowds  of  men  with  ashen  faces, 
past  the  wounded  who  dragged  themselves  along 
on  their  shattered  limbs  and  vainly  and  dumbly 
besought  help  from  every  vehicle.  And  so,  how 
could  she  expect  any  one  who  had  passed  so> 
many  horrors  to  recall  the  story  of  the  little 
church  with  its  suffering  enemies. 

And  yet  what  other  hope  was  there?  She 
couldn't  simply  go  on  vaguely  waiting.  The 
bandages  needed  absolutely  to  be  renewed.  They 
were  stiff  with  blood;  they  chafed  the  healing 
wounds  open  again.  The  small  store  of  supplies 
left  behind  by  the  fleeing  Germans  had  long  been 
used  up.  Only  the  telephone  apparatus  still 

217 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

stood  there.  Ironically  the  severed  wire  dangled 
from  the  window. 

The  sister's  eyes  filled  with  tears.  Was  she 
patiently  to  watch  one  after  the  other  of  the 
poor  fellows  in  there  get  gangrenous  and  die? 
Her  whole  body  quivered  with  indignation  at  the 
consciencelessness  of  the  people  who  had  sta- 
tioned her  here  and  then  forgotten  her.  For  three 
days  she  had  thrilled  joyously  every  time  an  auto 
passed  on  the  distant  road ;  her  eyes  had  clung  to 
the  cloud  of  dust  as  though  they  could  drag  the 
car  from  the  high  road  to  the  stony  street  that 
led  to  the  church.  Now  she  was  vexed  at  her 
own  credulity  and  could  not  help  reproaching 
herself  for  some  share  in  the  responsibility  for 
the  whole  misfortune.  For  had  she  not  been  a 
witness  of  the  joyous  confusion  which  broke  out 
when  suddenly  the  ambulances  drove  up  and 
some  one  cried  out  a  command  through  the  halls : 
"Pack  up  everything!  We  are  advancing!  The 
Germans  are  falling  back!  Victory!  Victory!" 
The  whole  field  hospital  had,  in  a  sense,  gone 
mad.  And  she  herself,  in  spite  of  her  sixty  years, 
had  she  not  let  the  word  victory  intoxicate  her? 
And  had  she  not  again  let  three  days  pass  now 
without  making  a  move? 

For  a  whole  year,  since  the  days  of  the  first 
skirmishes,  she  had  been  a  surgical  nurse  in  the 
field.  She  knew  from  experience  what  happened 
in  the  hospitals  after  whole  days  of  fighting 
when  the  wagons  came  in  endless  file  and  all 
corridors  were  filled  with  the  blood-stained 
218 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

stretchers.  The  surgeons  would  sweat  like 
stokers  at  their  work  and  it  would  need  to  be  an 
officer  of  high  rank  or  some  one  who  had  special 
influence  for  a  patient  to  be  operated  on  or 
bandaged  afresh  on  the  very  day  of  his  arrival. 
And  not  only  enemies,  but  even  their  own  men, 
poor  moaning  poilus  who  begged  to  be  bandaged 
afresh,  were  scolded  and  pushed  back  roughly 
when  they  held  out  their  bloody  stumps  to  the 
doctor  who,  after  twelve  hours  of  toil  in  the 
summer  heat  and  the  fumes  of  blood  and  chloro- 
form, had  no  compassion  left  except  for  his  own 
unspeakable  exhaustion.  So  it  was  but  natural 
(as  it  was  her  duty  to  have  foreseen)  that  the 
staff  physician  would  forget  his  hasty  promise 
and,  in  the  excitement  of  a  victorious  advance, 
abandon  her  and  her  twenty  German  wounded. 

The  guilt  was  hers  alone.  It  was  her  crime 
that  twenty  young,  strong  men  for  whom  wives 
and  mothers  were  in  dread  and  fear  at  home, 
must  here  die  a  most  wretched  death. 

Her  fists  clenched,  her  head  fallen  forward,  a 
silent  sobbing  in  her  throat,  Sister  Marie  seemed 
to  collapse  more  and  more.  With  her  natural 
instinct  of  a  nun  of  magnifying  and  subtilizing 
all  her  sins,  she  wrung  from  herself — as  though 
she  were  her  own  confessor — the  admission  that, 
had  French  wounded  been  lying  in  the  church, 
she  would  probably,  nay,  certainly,  have  sent  for 
help  far  sooner  and  not  risked  the  lives  of  her 
countrymen  so  rashly.  She,  a  bride  of  Christ, 
had  divided  her  suffering  fellowmen  into  friends 

219 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

and  enemies,  precisely  like  the  military  surgeons 
who  always  sent  the  French  wounded  back  in 
automobiles,  but  forced  the  Germans,  if  they 
could  but  drag  themselves,  to  crawl  the  twelve 
miles  to  the  hospital  on  foot.  How  could  she 
have  had  trust  enough  to  be  patient  at  all  with 
the  memory  of  those  wanderers  before  her?  It 
seemed  to  her  that  she  could  still  feel  the  look  on 
her  face  of  the  tall,  pale,  emaciated  German 
when  the  harsh  word  of  command  had  rung  out 
and  he  had  twisted  his  terribly  swollen  foot 
about  a  rough  stick  and  had  begun  to  limp  along 
his  way  of  the  Cross  with  all  the  helplessness  of 
unendurable  pain  in  his  blue  eyes.  And  now? 
Now  this  man  whom  she  had  not  been  able  to  beg 
off  was  saved ;  he  had  been  operated  on  and  lay, 
well  bandaged,  in  the  hospital.  And  these  others 
whom  she  had  taken  into  her  refuge  shook  with 
gangrenous  fever,  formed  pus  in  their  wounds 
and  were  dedicated  to  certain  death. 

Must  her  soul,  her  soul,  really  expiate  all  that 
guilt? 

No! 

Pressing  her  hands  upon  her  knees  she  pulled 
herself  slowly  up.  Staggering  with  weariness 
she  went  along  the  wall  to  the  soldiers.  With 
desperate  eloquence  she  explained  to  them  both 
the  danger  in  which  her  patients  were,  begged, 
threatened,  confessed  too  that  she  had  already 
taken  off  and  used  as  bandages  her  own  body 
linen,  and  her  crumpled,  old  face  flushed  as  with 
maidenly  shame  before  these  men's  eyes  that 
220 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

now  knew  her  bare  body  to  be  hidden  from  them 
only  by  her  black  robe. 

The  Walloon  was  not  to  be  moved.  The  small 
man  said  he  was  ready  to  go  out  to  the  road  once 
more.  As  for  going  directly  for  help — he  re- 
sented the  very  suggestion.  The  field  constables 
were  stationed  everywhere  like  spiders,  he  said, 
ready  to  catch  any  poor  soldier  whom  they  found 
in  the  fighting  zones  alone  and  without  a  written 
permit  from  the  military  authorities. 

The  tall  man  lost  patience  when  even  this  con- 
sideration did  not  cause  the  nurse  to  desist  from 
her  prayers.  She  was  a  hellish  good  patriot,  ac- 
cording to  him,  quite  willing  to  send  an  honest 
poilu  into  trouble  for  the  sake  of  a  handful  of 
boches  who  had  one  foot  in  the  grave  anyhow. 
Enraged  he  pulled  his  comrade  along  with  him, 
swearing  he  would  not  lift  a  hand  again  for  this1 
woman  and  her  devilish  church. 

Pale  as  death  the  poor  sister  dragged  herself 
back  to  her  seat.  She  shivered  and  gazed 
through  the  open  door  into  the  church  as  though 
the  devil  really  awaited  her  there  and  grinned 
at  her  through  the  vain  expectations  of  the 
fifteen  souls.  There  was  nothing  left  for  her  to 
do  but  wait  and  close  the  eyes  of  the  dying  .  .  . 
Her  knees  trembled  as  she  leaned  against  the 
pillar  behind  her.  She  could  not  find  the  courage 
for  a  round  among  the  beds.  Even  this  morning 
several  of  the  men  had  tried  to  rise  and  with 
threatening,  flashing  eyes  had  demanded  a  sur- 
geon. Others  had  strained  and  strained  to  trans- 

221 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

late  their  direst  needs  into  French.  And  the 
gleam  of  hope  in  their  poor  faces  when  they  suc- 
ceeded in  uttering  the  necessary  words  was 
harder  for  her  to  bear  than  the  reproaches  of 
the  more  indignant  ones.  Now  too,  she  heard  a 
call  every  now  and  then  or  the  sound  of  a  brief 
conversation  in  the  church.  And  it  all  sounded 
to  the  sister  as  though  every  word  was  a  curse 
directed  against  her.  Was  she  to  excuse  herself? 
Was  she  to  tell  them  the  truth?  But  that  would 
be  robbing  them  of  all  hope,  to  place  death  before 
their  very  eyes  .  .  . 

Suddenly  she  felt  herself  strong  again  and 
lifted  her  head  and  sent  a  grateful  glance  to 
heaven.  She  saw  her  particular  task  before  her ! 
She  was  prepared  to  take  upon  herself  all  the 
hatred  which,  she  felt  sure,  met  her  from  all 
those  beds,  in  order  that  these  poor  men  might 
keep  their  faith  that  medical  aid  was  sure  to 
come  and  to  make  up  for  all  that  the  indolence 
of  their  nurse  had  caused. 

Softly  she  slipped  into  the  church  on  her  felt 
slippers.  Without  looking  to  the  right  or  to  the 
left  she  went  straight  to  a  bed  that  stood  in  the 
middle  surrounded  by  straw  pallets.  When  she 
reached  it  she  felt  as  though  she  had  gained  a 
refuge,  so  deep  was  her  sympathy  for  the  young 
officer  who,  afflicted  with  a  bad  abdominal 
wound,  had  been  struggling  with  death  here  for 
ten  long  days.  He  was  somehow  different  from 
his  comrades.  She  could  nurse  him  without  the 
ugly  feeling  of  touching  an  enemy  who  had  sent, 
222 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

heaven  knows  how  many,  good  Frenchmen  to 
their  death.  At  the  bedsides  of  the  others,  too, 
she  tried  honestly  to  lose  that  feeling.  On  the 
first  day  she  had  carried  all  the  strange  uniforms 
into  a  corner  of  the  church  so  as  to  see  nothing 
but  suffering  fellowmen.  And  yet  it  was  hard. 
From  the  chatter  of  the  two  French  soldiers  it 
had  suddenly  become  clear  to  her  what  it  was 
that  always  obtruded  itself  like  a  wall  between 
her  and  these  men  and  diminished  her  compas- 
sion. "They  lie  there  dumb  as  fishes  .  .  ."  She 
heard  that  over  and  over  again — that  was  it. 
She  had  nursed  and  bandaged  so  many  French- 
men and  had  seen  them  suffer  and  die.  They 
moaned  and  whimpered  and  complained;  they 
were  like  weak  and  helpless  children  whom  one 
could  console  and  pity  actively.  But  these 
strangers  who  lay  in  her  church  were  not  like 
sick  children.  They  bore  their  sufferings  with 
compressed  lips  and  without  complaint.  They 
remained  grave  men  to  their  last  breath.  A  de- 
fiant pride  shone  from  their  eyes  and  seemed  to 
exclude  all  pity.  And  she  could  not  help  think- 
ing that  these  must  be  hard  men  who  could  be 
so  hard  toward  their  own  suffering  flesh.  She 
had  heard  similar  stories  about  the  English.  But 
she  felt  that  there  must  be  a  difference. 

Only  the  lad  in  that  isolated  bed  had  eyes  of 
another  kind.  He  seemed  more  familiar  to  her, 
even  though  he  spoke  less  French  than  his  com- 
rades and  although  his  name,  beautifully  in- 
scribed on  a  card  over  his  bed  sounded  inexpres- 

223 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

sibly  foreign  to  her:  "Ensign  Egas  von  Kru- 
low"  The  poor  sister  could  not  even  guess  at 
Ms  rank.  It  was  different  with  the  lieutenants 
and  the  majors,  for  those  words  were  the  same 
in  her  own  tongue.  But  at  least  this  youth  would 
let  her  pity  him  a  little  and  looked  grateful 
into  her  eyes  when  she  spoke  comforting  words 
and  even  groaned  with  pain  now  and  then. 

Impelled  by  her  warm  compassion  she  leaned 
over  his  bed  and  passed  her  hand  tenderly  over 
his  glowing  forehead. 

He  was  already  drifting  over  the  edge  of  life. 
But  his  mind  was  in  a  feverish  ecstasy,  out  of 
which  arose  bubbles  of  memory  as  though  the 
river  of  life  had  to  be  remounted  once  more  be- 
fore its  current  ceased.  His  fingers  grasped  after 
figures  that  glided  by,  a  monotonous  murmuring 
moved  his  lips,  anger  and  joy  chased  each  other 
in  swift  alternation  across  his  yellowish  face, 
which  had  become  old  and  furrowed  as  though 
he  had  swiftly  lived  through  the  fifty  remaining 
years  which  his  youth  might  claim.  Only  his 
body  did  not  stir.  It  lay  under  the  covers  small 
and  shrunken  in  the  glow  of  fever. 

A  tender  smile  hovered  on  his  lips,  a  recog- 
nition of  the  cool  hand  that  touched  his  forehead 
so  gently.  The  touch  completed  the  memory  in 
his  fevered  brain.  ...  It  had  been  just  so  on  the 
night  in  his  childhood  when  the  flames  threat- 
ened his  bed — his  little  white,  lacquered  bed  with 
the  tall  sides.  For  hours  he  had  been  wondering 
where  the  little  tongues  of  flame  came  from 
224 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

which  now  warmed  him,  like  old  friends,  and 
now  flared  up  angrily  and  seemed  to  singe  his 
eyelids  or  drop  like  molten  lava  into  his  brain. 
What  wild  and  woeful  things  he  had  dreamed! 
.  .  .  Thank  God,  he  was  at  home,  in  his  dear,  lit- 
tle room  and  not  in  the  great  bare  church  to 
which  he  had  had  to  flee  because  a  devil  pursued 
him,  a  great,  black,  hairy  devil  whom  surely, 
quite  surely  he  had  met  before.  Oh,  he  could  well 
remember  the  sharp,  three-pronged  pitchfork 
which  the  monster  kept  dipping  into  his  abdo- 
men. Once,  he  knew,  he  himself  had  handled 
such  a  fork.  But  his  hand  had  grown  since  then. 

No,  he  hadn't  merely  dreamed  that  devil. 
That  fiend  had  really  broken  the  windows  in  his 
rage  over  the  successful  flight  of  his  victim.  Or 
was  it  .  .  .  ?  Was  it  but  the  old,  Italian  doll 
that  stood  on  the  shelf  among  his  other  toys,  who 
had  a  long  tongue  of  red  cloth  and  flames  of  red 
cloth  sewn  on  his  cowl?  Then  perhaps  father 
would  come  in  with  his  terrible  willow  switch 
and  push  the  gentle  mother  aside  and  lift  him 
up  and  .  .  .  whip  him  .  .  .  whip  him.  .  .  . 

A  loud  and  penetrating  cry  of  fear  echoed 
through  the  church  so  that  all  the  sick  men 
started  up  and  stared  at  Ensign  von  Krtilow 
who  was  writhing  in  his  bed  as  though  he  were 
beside  himself.  He  didn't  want  to  be  whipped. 
He  was  grown  now  and  he  defended  himself  with 
all  his  might  against  the  unhead-of  injustice 
of  being  punished  for  misbehavior  that  he  had 
expiated  so  long  ago.  For  on  that  night  when  the 

225 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

flames  came,  it  had  been  impressed  upon  him 
that  a  boy  must  not  show  fear.  He  had  been  told 
that  whoever  wore  the  emperor's  coat  must  set 
his  teeth  even  at  seven  and  rather  suffer  terror 
than  be  a  coward  and  call  for  his  mother.  And 
he  had  since  learned  what  it  was  to  repress 
everything — everything  for  fear  of  being  laughed 
at.  He  had  learned  it  so  thoroughly  that  the 
consciousness  of  having  cried  out,  of  having 
failed  in  manly  self-control  drove  the  sweat  of 
fear  upon  his  brow. 

Had  they  heard  him?  .  .  .  Surreptitiously  he 
opened  his  eyes  but  closed  them  again  with  a 
moan,  for  the  light  seemed  molten  and  hot  and 
to  drop  like  liquid  fire  into  his  brain.  So  he  was 
in  that  church,  after  all.  And  that  fork  was 
stirring  in  his  entrails,  too.  Only  his  mother 
was  no  longer  there  and  her  shadow  no  longer 
guarded  him  from  the  sight  of  the  tongues  of 
flame.  Her  visit  was  the  only  thing  he  had 
dreamed.  The  flight  into  the  church,  the  tor- 
ments— it  was  all  reality.  But  the  cool,  kind 
hand  he  sought  in  vain. 

So  she  had  really  died?  .  .  .  They  had  not  lied 
to  him.  She  was  dead  and  there  was  no  one  left 
in  the  world  to  whom  he  could  pour  out  his 
heart,  to  whom  he  could  be  tender?  He  felt  the 
sobs  rise  in  his  throat  and  bit  his  teeth  into  his 
nether  lip  and  stretched  every  nerve  in  deadly 
fear.  For  again  he  saw  the  commandant  of  the 
military  school  sit  at  his  desk,  handling  a  tele- 
gram. And  he  knew  what  was  at  stake.  If  he 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

didn't  succeed  now  in  imitating  the  demeanor  of 
his  brothers ;  if  a  single  tear  escaped  him,  all  the 
officers  would  be  instructed  to  teach  him  self- 
control  and  all  the  petty  tyranny  would  victim- 
ize him  again. 

No,  he  didn't  want  to  be  called  a  sissy  again 
and  be  tormented  and  jeered  at  and  despised. 
Kather  than  live  those  years  over  again  he  would 
follow  his  mother  into  the  darkness.  When  he 
had  been  with  her  he  had  had  no  need  to  dis- 
semble. She  had  shared  his  indignation  over  the 
roughness  of  so  many  of  his  companions.  She 
did  not  even  despise  him  when,  at  the  end  of  the 
summer  vacation,  he  threw  himself  with  bitter 
tears  into  her  arms  and  begged  her  not  to  send 
him  back  to  school.  Why  was  she  not  here  now? 
Why  did  she  not  protect  him  now  that  he  needed! 
her  protection  so  sorely?  He  felt  his  forehead 
where  the  hand  had  touched  him.  He  would  so 
liked  to  have  called  her  as  in  the  old  days  when 
there  had  been  no  happiness  for  him  comparable 
to  that  of  being  ill  and  being  nursed  by  her.  And 
he  felt  a  mad  yearning  to  be  petted  and  con- 
soled and  pitied.  And  he  did  not  realize  that  his 
fevered  lips  cried  out  into  the  echoing  church  all 
the  thoughts  that  stirred  in  his  sick  brain. 

Sister  Marie  knelt  praying  at  the  altar  when 
she  was  startled  by  a  loud  cry  from  him — a  sud- 
den cry  for  help  that  soon  changed  into  a  re- 
proachful moaning.  Anxiously  she  bent  over 
him,  pressed  his  hand  softly  and  whispered: 
"Vous  souffrez? — Patience!  Qa  ira  mieux" 

227 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

Egas  von  Kriilow  did  not  understand  the 
words.  Only  the  tone  he  heard,  the  tone  that  he 
had  heard  no  more  since  his  mother  died.  And 
he  felt  the  cool  hand.  The  voice  was  music — the 
blending  of  a  thousand  dear  words  that  he  had 
missed  so  long.  His  whole  body  seemed  to  relax 
in  a  warm  well-being  to  let  in  the  blessed  sound. 
With  a  beatific  smile  he  stretched  out  his  arms 
to  draw  down  the  beloved  voice  nearer  to  him- 
self, and  to  it  he  told  of  his  pain  and  begged  it 
tearfully,  like  a  frightened  child,  for  his  young 
life. 

The  sister  had  stepped  back.  Her  face  was 
red,  her  temples  throbbed,  as  though  all  the 
rusty  hinges  of  her  old  heart  had  begun  to  move 
smoothly  at  the  sight  of  the  youth's  outstretched 
arms.  She  looked  shyly  about  her  and  uttered  a 
cry  at  sight  of  a  strange  face  that  arose  near  her 
— a  face  apparently  hewn  of  stone. 

It  was  the  face  of  an  officer  who  lay  in  a  bed 
against  the  wall.  He  had  raised  himself  up  with 
superhuman  exertion  and  had  listened  to  the 
ensign  with  a  flame  of  anger  in  his  eyes.  He 
looked  ghastly  with  his  white  lips  and  his  blond 
mustache  which  seemed  alien  and  strawy  in  his 
pallid  pain-distorted  face.  He  leaned  as  far 
over  as  he  could  and  cried:  "For  God's  sake, 
man,  grit  your  teeth !  Do  you  want  to  shame  us 
all  with  your  goings  on?" 

Kigid  with  astonishment  the  sister  listened  to 
the  hard  and  angry  voice.  She  saw  the  heads 
of  the  others  rise  from  their  pillows  and  send  a 
228 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

fire  of  angry  looks  at  the  youth  in  the  lonely 
bed.  She  guessed  from  the  tone  of  the  words 
which  now  sounded  from  all  sides  that  some 
strange  force  had  arisen  in  the  whole  church  that 
was  hostile  to  her  dying  favorite.  Utterly  con- 
fused she  gazed  at  the  many  angry  faces. 

Egas  von  Kriilow  had  dragged  himself  up  too. 
His  breast  labored  and  a  great  anger  showed  on 
his  face.  He  stretched  out  his  right  arm  and 
clutched  at  the  air.  His  lips  sought  to  form 
words,  his  poor  powerless  lips,  words  that  so 
desired  to  leap  into  the  world.  He  did  not  see 
the  yellow  face  of  his  fellow  officer.  His  fever 
blinded  vision  could  not  reach  to  the  next  bed. 
He  saw  only  dim  outlines,  but  these  blended  into 
an  image  which  his  great  indignation  created. 
For  it  was  not  an  individual  who  had  cried  out 
those  words  to  him — it  was  the  dragon,  the  Min- 
otaur that  had  devoured  all  his  childhood  and  all 
his  youth,  the  enemy  that  had  grudged  him  every 
caress  and  every  tender  word. 

Now  at  last  he  could  grasp  the  monster,  now 
he  could  lay  hands  upon  it.  ...  His  chest  ex- 
panded, his  mouth  opened,  all  his  imprisoned 
pride  rebelled  against  that  thing  of  evil  that  he 
desired  to  confront  sternly  for  a  last  time.  But 
even  this  tragic  satisfaction  was  denied  him! 
The  words  rose  only  to  his  lips.  Then  his 
strength  failed.  Instead  of  the  heavy  words  of 
judgment  and  revolt,  a  thick  stream  of  blood  is- 
sued from  his  mouth.  Once  more  he  looked  about 
him  for  help  with  his  great  frightened  eyes. 

229 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

Then  he  sank  slowly  back  into  the  sister's  arms 
— slowly  and  gently  as  a  stricken  bird. 

A  cold,  estranged  silence  filled  the  church 
when,  shortly  before  sundown,  the  two  French 
stretcher-bearers  came  for  the  body.  Covered 
only  by  his  blood-stained  greatcoat  they  carried 
him  past  his  comrades.  They  laid  him  down  on 
the  naked  earth  near  the  glittering  fragments 
of  glass. 

"Measure  him!"  the  tall  fellow  grunted  with 
a  cynical  shrug.  The  other  obeyed  silently  and 
with  his  spade  drew  two  light  furrows  in  the 
earth  at  the  head  and  feet  of  the  dead  man.  The 
big  man  tapped  his  shoulder. 

"Look  at  his  hands,  will  you?  Like  a  prin- 
cess's. Believe  me,  he  didn't  want  to  die!  He 
might  have  had  a  lot  of  fun  yet." 

The  small  man  shook  his  head  angrily.  "Rot! 
Nobody  wants  to  die — rich  or  poor."  And  hur- 
riedly, as  though  fearing  further  comment,  he 
lifted  his  spade  and  plunged  it  viciously  into  the 
earth  as  though  he  were  striking  at  his  worst 
enemy. 

The  big  man  still  stood  thoughtfully,  lost  in 
his  contemplation  of  the  body.  "If  his  mother 
could  see  him!"  he  cried  with  an  ugly  grin.  "I 
suppose  she's  sitting  on  a  fine  upholstered  chair 
knitting  a  silk  muffler  so  that  her  little  son  don't 
catch  cold." 

Like  an  angry  little  dog  the  small  man  barked 
230 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

out  at  his  companion:  "Stop  your  damn'  talk. 
Go  to  work!" 

The  other  grumbled,  turned  up  his  sleeves 
slowly,  examined  his  spade,  glanced  at  the  set- 
ting sun,  spat  and  went  to  work. 

The  last  rays  of  the  sun  penetrated  the  dust 
whirled  up  by  the  high  road.  There  was  no  sound 
but  the  heavy  breathing  of  the  two  gravediggers 
and  the  crunching  of  their  spades  against  the 
flinty  earth. 


£31 


V 


PRISONERS    OF    WAR 


V 

PRISONERS     OF    WAR 

fTHHE  lake  gleamed  in  the  overwhelming  sun- 
A  light.  In  its  angle  between  cliff  and  water 
glittered  Lucerne,  which,  in  its  radiance,  seemed 
scattered  about  in  that  hilly  country.  The  houses 
were  placed  apparently  at  random,  as  though  a 
child  had  scattered  them  down  from  some  nearby 
peak.  They  shone  from  the  green  of  the  wood- 
lands, lay  on  the  gay  meadows,  gathered  in  little 
groups  here  and  there  as  if  they  had  not  been 
able  to  roll  across  the  white  road.  A  few  stood 
hard  by  the  lake  and  seemed  to  be  kept  from  fall- 
ing into  it  by  a  white  fence  or  a  group  of  trees. 
And  the  steamers,  too,  looked  from  afar  smaller 
than  the  toy  boats  at  Christmas.  And  the  old, 
brown  wooden  bridge  and  the  powder  tower, 
above  all,  looked  like  toys,  so  that  one  was 
tempted  to  see  if  they  were  not  really  made  of 
marchpane  and  whether  the  tower  were  not  filled 
with  sweets  instead  of  powder. 

George  Gadsky  sat  on  the  low  wall  that 
bounded  the  hospital  garden  and  dangled  his  legs 
over  the  abyss.  He  was  utterly  lost  in  his  vision 
of  the  glimmering,  sun-drenched  landscape.  But 
a  deep  and  gnawing  sadness  oppressed  him  and 
the  consciousness  that  he  dared  not  show  how 

235 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

difficult  the  parting  would  be  increased  that  sad- 
ness to  the  wilderness  of  grief.  Hastily  he  pulled 
the  official  paper  from  his  pocket.  It  had  just 
been  handed  to  him.  He  turned  it  about  slowly, 
reading  his  own  name,  the  route  of  travel,  all  the 
various  instructions  and  orders  and  jumped  back 
into  the  garden  with  a  loud  curse. 

At  last  it  was  decided.  To-morrow  his  feet 
would  be  on  German  soil  again.  But  what  joy 
was  there  in  that  when  it  meant  a  return  to  the 
slavery  of  war,  to  the  slavery  of  Stuff — a  slavery 
that  involved  the  issues  of  life  and  death? 

Mathilde?  ...  He  tried  to  think  of  her.  He 
closed  his  eyes  to  see  her  face  better,  to  vis- 
ualize her  joy  and  her  caress.  It  was  all  dim 
to  him.  The  reality  was  the  barracks  in  which 
his  journey  ended.  Not  until  he  had  reported 
there  would  he  have  permission  to  return  on  a 
leave  to  his  recovered  life. 

A  steamer  blew  its  whistle  below  and  drew  his 
glance  toward  the  lake.  Was  it  not  madness  to 
leave  the  radiance  of  this  blessed  peace  and  re- 
turn to  that  careworn  country  that  was  breaking 
down  because  its  conscience  was  the  first  among 
the  consciences  of  the  nations  to  awaken  and  to 
rebel,  silently  as  yet,  against  the  horror  and  the 
wrong  of  war?  And  he,  though  seeing  clearly, 
would  have  to  go  back  in  silence  and  continue 
silent  and  patiently  watch  a  nation  repress  its 
immitigable  tears  because  it  was  still  too  "loyal" 
— that  deadly  universal  word  of  doom  and 
slavery — too  "loyal"  to  fly  at  the  throat  of  that 
236 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

mere  handful  of  men  who  had  led  it  into  these 
tragic  straits  .  .  . 

With  bowed  head  Gadsky  strode  toward  the 
gate.  He  seemed  already  to  bend  under  the  bur- 
den that  awaited  him.  He  heard  some  one  calling 
his  name  but  feigned  not  to  hear  and  hastened 
on  so  as  to  escape.  So  great  was  his  fear  that 
some  tiresome  bore  would  join  him  and  cross  his 
plans  that  he  ran  for  a  part  of  the  way  and  did 
not  walk  until  he  had  reached  the  wood.  They 
were  whispering  in  the  hospital  concerning  these 
lonely  walks  of  his.  The  idea  of  being  unmasked 
on  the  last  day  had  little  of  the  alluring.  He  was 
under  considerable  suspicion  of  sympathizing 
with  the  enemy  even  as  it  was.  Especially  among 
the  non-commissioned  officers  there  were  men 
who  could  not  forgive  him  because  in  the  French 
prison  camp  he,  a  mere  private,  had  been  treated 
better  than  themselves.  They  reproached  him 
with  having  lived  almost  like  a  French  officer  and 
would  have  been  happy  over  the  discovery  that 
in  the  woods  he  met  an  interned  Frenchman  and 
carried  on  endless  conversations  with  him. 

High  in  the  forest  Gadsky  sat  down  on  a  stone. 
From  this  point  he  had  a  view  of  the  whole  land- 
scape as  far  as  the  railroad  track.  He  had  be- 
come accustomed  to  rest  here  until  he  was  quite 
sure  that  no  one  was  spying  on  him.  He  smiled 
at  these  precautions  that  reminded  him  of  old 
times,  of  little  love  affairs  which,  in  that  goodly 
life  in  the  past,  had  seemed  so  serious.  Whoeve'r 
watched  him  day  after  day  would  doubtless  have 

237 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

wagered  that  he  had  an  affair  with  a  woman. 
Ah,  adultery  even  would  have  been  a  small  mat- 
ter compared  with  the  crime  that  he  was  com- 
mitting .  .  .  Secret  meetings  with  an  enemy.  It 
wasn't  easy  to  contemplate  the  annoyances  that 
his  secret  might  conceivably  produce. 

He  had  arisen  and  looked  at  his  watch.  But 
he  sat  down  again,  determined  to  wait  another 
fifteen  minutes.  Stuff  was  casting  his  shadow 
before.  The  thought  of  having  to  meet  him  to- 
morrow increased  his  vigilant  care.  What  a 
triumph  would  the  fellow  enjoy  if  Gadsky,  whom 
he  had  never  liked,  returned  as  an  unmasked 
traitor. 

Quickly  Gadsky  took  Mathilde's  last  letter 
from  his  pocket  as  if  it  were  a  talisman  that 
could  lay  the  evil  phantoms.  She  wrote  very 
hopefully.  She  had  received  a  definite  promise 
from  the  director  of  the  Imperial  Opera  and  she 
felt  sure  that  his  release  from  further  military 
service  would  be  procured  when  once  he  was  at 
home  again.  But  how  did  he  know  that  the  at- 
tempt would  really  succeed?  He  hadn't  much 
confidence  in  such  things;  he  wanted  to  spare 
himself  an  unbearable  disappointment,  and  he 
could  not  help  remembering  the  difficulties  into 
which  Mathilde's  zeal  had  already  plunged  him. 
If  she  hadn't  so  tirelessly  persuaded  the  authori- 
ties and  twice  traveled  to  Switzerland  to  plead 
for  him  with  the  medical  commissioners,  he 
would  not  now  have  been  forced  to  return  home 
and,  perhaps,  to  carry  his  pierced  lung  into  bat- 
238 


THE  JUDGMENT  OP  PEACE 

tie  again.  That  was,  for  the  present,  the  only  re- 
sult of  her  activities.  If  she  were  not  successful 
in  actually  obtaining  his  release  from  service  for 
the  remainder  of  the  war,  it  would  be  her  love 
that  was  actually  driving  him  once  more  into  all 
the  terrors  of  death.  Without  her  efforts  he 
would  still  be  in  the  wooden  hut  of  the  French 
prison  camp.  They  had  granted  him  a  piano,  and 
Ducrecy,  the  kindly,  careless  major  of  terri- 
torials, had  quietly  seen  to  it  that  he  did  not 
suffer.  .  .  . 

He,  personally,  had  no  reason  not  to  remember 
that  camp  with  kindness.  He  had  forgotten,  as 
one  will,  the  murderous  monotony,  the  thousand 
humiliations.  Only  the  pleasant  evenings  with 
Ducrecy — passed  with  tea  and  music — projected 
into  his  memory  from  that  quiet  period.  He  saw 
himself  sitting  at  the  piano  and  saw  the  droll, 
old  gentleman  enthusiastically  stalk  through  the 
room,  beating  time  and  often,  when  he  waved  his 
arms  like  a  conductor,  sweeping  the  glasses  from 
the  table.  It  had  been  an  almost  idyllic  life. 

Mathilde,  of  course,  was  unable  to  realize  how 
well  he  was  taken  care  of.  She  thought,  quite 
naturally,  that  his  pleasant  generalities  were 
meant  to  calm  and  soothe  her.  The  censorship 
forbade  any  concrete  description  of  his  condi- 
tion. And  he  could  not  blame  her.  For  he  had 
but  to  recall  the  first  months  to  realize  that  a 
woman  had  every  cause  to  tremble  for  her  be- 
loved in  French  captivity !  With  the  hands  of  a 
veritable  hangman  the  hate-maddened  French 

239 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

staff  surgeon  had  probed  his  wound  and  torn  off 
his  bandages.  The  attendants  of  both  sexes  had 
done  their  best  to  equal  their  commander  in  pa- 
triotic zeal  until  his  vigorous  organism  had  re- 
mained victorious  and  the  hated  boche  had 
ceased  spitting  blood  and  was  discharged.  Then, 
like  a  corpse  that  returns  to  a  ghastly  life  from 
the  dissecting  table,  he  had  staggered  and  stum- 
bled on  the  long  march  to  the  railroad  station. 
A  cold  shiver  ran  down  his  back  to  this  day  when 
he  remembered  his  transportation  from  the  hos- 
pital to  the  prison  camp.  Trembling  with  cold 
he  had  sat  in  the  quivering  August  heat  of  the 
railroad  carriage.  Bayonets  stared  at  him  from 
all  sides.  Next  to  him  had  crouched  the  actually 
bestial  marechal  des  logis  who  had  driven  the 
quivering  skeletons  under  his  charge  out  of  the 
•compartment  at  every  station  as  though  they  had 
to  change  trains,  and  had  done  this  merely  for 
the  fiendish  delight  of  driving  them  in  again  at 
the  end  of  bayonet  and  rifle.  Of  course,  the  piti- 
able creature  had  been  maddened  in  the  usual 
way.  All  through  the  journey  he  had  read  out 
aloud  the  accounts  of  atrocities  which  (accord- 
ing to  the  Paris  Matin,  of  course)  the  boches 
committed  against  their  French  prisoners.  On 
that  trip  Gadsky  had  regretted  that  the  strength 
failed  him  to  hurl  himself  upon  the  bayonet  that 
was  held  to  his  chest  without  ceasing  and  so  to 
end  his  intolerable  misery.  And  yet  he  could 
not  hate  even  this  fanatical  beast.  Worthy  of 
hatred  were  only  those  accursed  ghouls  of  the 
"240 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

press  who  never  examined  evidence,  who  exer- 
cised their  vile  imagination  to  produce  more  and 
more  hatred,  and  who  cared  little  for  the  poor 
devils  of  prisoners  who  had  to  pay  with  broken 
bones  for  the  pay  which  those  inflammatory  arti- 
cles brought  their  authors. 

Below,  in  Lucerne,  a  tower  clock  struck  the 
half  hour  between  three  and  four  and  aroused 
Gadsky  from  his  thoughts.  Hastily  he  arose, 
searched  the  fields  and  woods  with  his  eyes  and 
once  more  and  now  in  a  calmer  mood  began  the 
ascent.  The  farewell  that  was  ahead  of  him 
made  him  review  in  his  mind  the  eleven  months 
he  had  spent  in  Switzerland.  It  made  him  also 
recall  the  day  on  which  he  had  met  his  dear,  old 
Ducrecy.  He  remembered  the  terror — born  of 
his  most  bitter  experience — that  had  throbbed 
in  his  very  throat  when,  on  the  second  day  of  his 
stay  in  the  prison  camp,  he  had  been  summoned 
to  the  commandant.  The  fear  of  having  made 
some  thoughtless  remark  in  his  fevered  and  en- 
feebled condition  seemed  to  rob  his  bloodless 
limbs  of  all  power  as  he  stood  waiting  in  the 
anteroom.  He  had  entered.  And  the  major  had 
asked  him  whether  he  was  a  relation  of  the  fa- 
mous pianist.  But  the  question  had  been  un- 
necessary. Even  in  that  swaying  skeleton  the 
major  had  recognized  the  honored  and  beloved 
young  master  and  would  have  embraced  him  but 
for  the  presence  of  the  two  secretaries.  The  old 
gentleman  knew  by  heart  the  program  of  all  his 
Parisian  concerts ;  reminded  him,  with  gleaming 

241 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

eyes,  of  many  fine  points  in  his  execution  and 
even  asked  him  quite  seriously,  after  a  while, 
why  he  played  a  certain  passage  with  wild 
energy  now  which,  in  1910,  he  had  played  with 
slow  retardation  of  movement.  .  .  . 

Smiling  sadly  Gadsky  stopped  on  the  height 
once  more,  looked  back  at  the  lake,  and  passed 
his  cane  across  the  tall  grasses  that  trembled  at 
the  edge  of  the  forest.  He  smiled  again  as  he 
recalled  his  old  friend.  He  had  taken  him  into 
the  office  as  interpreter  and  let  him  sleep  there 
so  that  he,  a  private  soldier,  without  even  the  iron 
cross,  enjoj'ed  the  priceless  luxury  of  privacy. 
Then  had  come  the  piano  into  the  hut,  ostensibly 
for  the  Sunday  services.  The  tousled  head  of  the 
major's  wife  had  followed  and  had  kept  turning 
up  in  the  office.  And  one  comfort  after  another 
had  been  furnished  the  poor  prisoner. 

But  Gadsky's  smile  yielded  to  a  hard  and  bit- 
ter expression  and  he  clenched  his  hands.  For 
he  remembered,  too,  how  foolishly  and  child* 
ishly  and  shortsightedly  he  had  really  behaved ! 
He,  too,  had  been  taken  in  by  the  stupid  catch- 
word "liberty"  which  all  governments  had 
drilled  into  their  citizens  to  enslave  them  but 
the  more  easily!  Could  he  blame  Mathilde  for 
her  tireless  efforts  when  he  himself,  despite  all 
the  kindness  which  he,  at  least,  had  received,  had 
been  as  full  of  delight  as  a  child  when  his  sad- 
dened old  friend  had  announced  to  him  his  ap- 
proaching liberation.  How  ashamed  was  he  now 
when  he  remembered  that  scene.  Surely,  surely, 
242 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

he  need  have  been  no  very  deep  thinker  to  realize 
that  the  wires  and  stakes  of  the  prison-camp 
protected  the  prisoner  from  the  deeper  slavery 
of  war.  In  the  front  trenches,  when  the  drum 
fire  built  its  roof  of  steel,  when  death  hewed  the 
quivering  earth  with  its  unchoosing  fangs — how 
happy  one  would  have  been  to  flee  to  such  a  refuge 
as  this  prison  camp.  And  but  a  few  weeks  after 
one's  almost  miraculous  escape,  here  one  was 
making  wild  plans,  digging  tunnels,  inventing 
disguises,  only  to  escape  this  kindly  rampart 
that  saved  one  from  the  floods  of  war,  but  which 
a  few  bayonet  points  turned  apparently  into  a 
real  prison.  So  blind  could  words  make  one,  so 
blindly  was  one  ruled  by  them,  that  the  most 
fearful  slavery  loomed  up  as  a  kind  of  freedom 
if  a  wall  or  a  fence  prevented  one  from  rushing 
into  it.  .  .  . 

Gadsky  turned  away  from  the  radiant  land- 
scape at  his  feet  and  went  forward  again  amid 
the  woodlands  which  grew  on  the  ascent  after 
the  clearing  had  been  crossed. 

Of  the  first  months  of  his  internment  in  Swit- 
zerland he  hated  to  think.  He  could  easily,  of 
course,  had  it  been  necessary,  have  freed  himself 
from  any  suspicion  of  having  had  any  wrong  deal- 
ings with  the  enemy.  But  he  had  taken  wine  and 
bread  and  associated  with  the  commander  on  so- 
cial terms  and  played  to  him  and  his  wife.  And 
this  was  set  down  against  him  as  a  'lamentable 
lack  of  pride  and  self-respect."  And  it  was  prob- 
ably no  mere  accident  that  in  Switzerland  he  had 

243 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

been  put  directly  under  the  non-commissioned 
officer  who  had  made  it  his  business  to  tell  the 
story  of  his  strange  fraternizing  with  the  enemy. 

This  sergeant,  of  course,  had  gleefully  brought 
it  home  to  him  that  here  he  was  no  more  than 
any  other  private.  As  often  as  possible  he  com- 
manded him  to  perform  disagreeable  and  humil- 
iating duties.  But  he  could  have  borne  that  if 
only,  as  in  the  prison-camp  in  France,  he  had 
been  able  at  night  to  withdraw  to  the  privacy  of 
a  little  wooden  hut.  What  weighed  upon  him 
was  the  constant  presence  of  uneducated,  curi- 
ous, unsympathetic  men  who  made  crude  jokes 
and  had  no  reticence.  And  this  became  all  but 
unendurable  when  Mathilde  arrived. 

Since  they  were  not  married,  there  was  no  way 
of  getting  an  official  leave  of  absence  from  the 
barracks  at  night.  The  thought,  moreover,  of 
the  men's  confidentially  lecherous  glances  made 
him  content  himself  with  the  few  daylight  hours 
of  leave  which  were  his  in  the  regular  course  of 
things.  But  the  little  town  was  so  filled  with 
gray  uniforms  that  it  was  like  a  little  garrison 
town  in  times  of  peace  and  gossip  was  the  chief 
occupation.  Everywhere  he  was  quietly  pointed 
out  as  the  soldier  lover  of  the  famous  singer ! 

Only  in  the  comfortable  little  apartment  that 
Mathilde  had  taken  in  the  magnificent  Castle 
Hotel  could  they  be  together  undisturbed.  There 
his  blessedness,  longed  for  a  thousand  times, 
awaited  him.  There  he  could  cleanse  his  defiled 
soul  in  her  great  tenderness.  And  yet  it  was 
244 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

just  these  hours  that  he  grew  most  to  fear. 
Twice  only  during  her  stay  had  he  ventured 
into  the  hotel.  Even  in  the  foyer  a  darkness  fell 
upon  his  eyes.  For  the  place  swarmed  with  Ger- 
man guests — with  people  whom  the  war  had  en- 
riched and  with  a  few  who  had  somehow  been 
released  from  military  service.  And  the  cruel 
contrast  between  these  people  and  himself  smote 
upon  his  heart.  They  had  rights  which  were  not 
his ;  they  had  freedom  and  human  dignity ;  they 
were  the  slaves  of  no  machine,  of  no  petty  tyran- 
nies. But  he,  who,  from  the  conventional  point 
of  view,  had  suffered  everything  for  the  father- 
land, who  had  almost  lost  his  life,  who  had  en- 
dured the  extreme  cruelty  of  the  enemy,  who  had 
forever  burdened  his  soul  with  the  slaying  of 
men — he  who  was  in  himself  a  man  of  distinction 
and  an  adornment  to  his  country,  had  not  the 
rights  of  these  profiteers  and  slackers,  but  was 
penned  at  night  in  a  stall  with  riff-raff  and  had 
to  keep  his  eye  on  his  watch  when  he  was  with 
the  woman  whom  he  loved.  The  indignation 
that  this  caused  him  blended  with  the  irritation 
of  his  overwrought  nerves  to  such  an  extent  that 
he  knew  in  retrospect  that  his  behavior  to 
Mathilde  had  ill  repaid  her  for  her  impassioned 
and  tireless  and  devoted  love.  And  to-day  a 
chill  came  over  him  at  the  thought  of  the  scenes 
which  he,  or  rather  his  sick  nerves  and  his 
wounded  sense  of  justice,  had  caused  her.  And 
yet,  although  he  saw  it  all  clearly  now  and  swore 
to  make  it  up  to  her  in  the  future  in  redoubled 

245 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

tenderness  and  delicacy,  yet  no  feeling  of  genuine 
remorse  arose  in  him.  For  he  sternly  recognized 
the  unescapable  fact  that  her  presence  had  em- 
phasized and  raised  into  the  most  glaring  light 
the  loss  of  liberty  and  human  dignity  to  which  he 
was  condemned  because  he  had  served  his  coun- 
try and  because  he  was  still  a  member  of  its 
armed  forces.  Had  not  the  Swiss  surgeons  freed 
him  from  this  situation  by  declaring  his  lungs 
not  yet  perfectly  healed  and  his  right  hand  in 
need  of  electro-therapeutic  treatment,  he  would, 
at  that  early  period  of  his  internment,  have  taken 
his  own  life. 

He  had  been  so  absorbed  in  his  own  thoughts 
that  he  had  walked  on  until,  of  their  own  accord, 
his  limbs  stopped  at  the  edge  of  the  little  upland 
meadow  that  had  been  for  weeks  the  meeting- 
place  of  his  strange  encounters.  When  he  looked 
up  he  saw  the  anxious  face  of  his  friend  behind 
the  trunk  of  a  tree.  The  face  was  anxious  be- 
cause Gadsky  had  evidently  been  talking  to  him- 
self and  Merlier  had  begun  to  fear  that  he  was 
not  alone.  They  laughed  over  the  little  misun- 
derstanding and  shook  hands  warmly.  Then  the 
Frenchman  threw  a  deep,  questioning  glance  at 
Gadsky  and  said  hesitatingly:  "So  this  is  our 
farewell?" 

Gadsky  nodded  silently.  His  heart,  too,  grew 
heavy  as  he  regarded  the  pale,  sincere  face  that 
had  been  his  joy  and  his  consolation  here.  It 
would  disappear  from  him  now.  And  how  little 
chance  had  they  of  ever  meeting  again !  Silently 
246 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

they  sat  down  on  their  accustomed  tree  stumps 
and  stared  down  at  the  lake  and  the  city  until 
Merlier  laid  his  hand  on  the  shoulder  of  his 
friend  and  said  in  his  droll,  delicately  pro- 
nounced German :  "This  is  the  fiftieth  time  that 
we  are  meeting  here." 

Gadsky  smiled  sadly.  Wasn't  it  strange  how 
their  national  parts  were  exchanged.  Merlier 
was  the  exact  one  who  noted  everything,  remem- 
bered everything  and  had  entered  their  conversa- 
tions in  his  diary  night  after  night.  And  what 
had  they  not  discussed? 

An  uncanny  sense  of  spiritual  emptiness  came 
over  Gadsky  when  he  considered  that  these  meet- 
ings and  conversations  were  at  an  end  for  all 
time.  Where  would  he  find  a  substitute?  Poor 
Weiler  was  still  in  the  asylum;  Kriilow  was 
listed  as  "missing."  All  of  his  friends  that  he 
really  cared  for  were  dead  or  in  enemy  prisons. 
The  little  Frenchman  had  become  indispensable 
to  him.  When  he  sat  there  and  noticed  how  the 
greenish  gray  of  his  own  uniform  contrasted  so 
ill  with  the  horizon  blue  of  his  friend's,  when  he 
considered  how  the  very  colors  of  their  garments 
seemed  at  war,  he  was  still  constantly  astonished 
at  the  certainty  with  which  fate,  through  the 
harmony  of  their  two  minds,  had  brought  them 
together  despite  all  the  anger  and  terror  with 
which  their  masters  would  have  pursued  them 
had  they  known.  And  they  had  been  safe  so  far. 
A  single  unfortunate  meeting  with  some  one 
would  have  spread  the  scandal  of  their  friendship 

247 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

among  the  French  as  well  as  among  the  Germans 
in  the  town.  But  nothing  had  happened. 

When  he  had  first  arrived  in  Lucerne  an  al- 
most physical  nausea  had  overcome  him  at  the 
sight  of  the  swarming  blue  uniforms  in  the  rail- 
road station.  For  these  uniforms  were  insepara- 
ble in  his  mind  and  nerves  now  from  the  hoarse 
croaking  of  the  "Marseillaise"  in  hand-to-hand 
fighting,  from  moans  and  dirt  and  cruel  suffer- 
ing. As  often  as  he  met  a  French  soldier  he 
could  almost  feel  the  tingle  of  the  enslaving 
bayonet  of  the  prison  master  against  his  side. 
But  his  unforgettable  experience  with  Merlier 
had  definitely  freed  him  of  that  unhappy  feeling. 

It  had  happened  on  the  first  Sunday  of  his 
stay  in  Lucerne — a  magnificent  day,  fragrant 
with  spring.  Under  the  roof  of  the  early  foliage 
of  the  great  promenade  people  were  happily 
walking,  freed  from  the  heaviness  of  their  winter 
wrappings.  The  uniforms  gleamed  among  the 
civilians  like  crocuses  on  a  meadow.  The  band, 
almost  nervous  in  its  careful  neutrality,  followed 
up  the  Pilgrims'  Chorus  from  Tannhauser  by  an 
overture  of  Boildieu.  The  public,  equally  neu- 
tral, applauded  both  exactly  alike.  German, 
French,  English  and  Swiss  soldiers  strolled  by. 
Every  one  was  talkative  and  care-free  and  so  well 
rested  and  happy  that  one  might  have  thought 
oneself  on  a  different  planet. 

He,  too,  had  walked  there,  lighter  of  body  and 
of  mind  and  filled  with  a  sense  of  regal  independ- 
ence. He  had  just  been  trying  to  squeeze  past  a 

mnio 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

group  of  chattering  girls  when  there  bobbed  up, 
unexpectedly  and  from  the  opposite  direction,  a 
little  French  infantryman.  He  tried  to  step 
aside,  collided  with  the  whirl  of  white  frocks  and 
was  somewhat  ungently  pushed  against  the 
Frenchman.  Automatically  he  saluted  and  ut- 
tered the  ordinary  formula  of  courtesy.  At  the 
same  moment  he  was  aware  of  the  same  gesture 
on  the  part  of  the  sky-blue  enemy  and  heard  the 
latter  speak  the  identical  words.  He  walked  on 
a  few  paces,  involuntarily  swung  around  and 
caught  the  Frenchman  doing  the  same  thing. 
Their  eyes  met  and  a  spark  sprang  from  man  to 
man  that  illuminated  once  more  the  crass  stu- 
pidity of  the  whole  bloody  game.  Their  tribal 
consciences  drove  them  swiftly  apart  that  day. 
But  their  friendship  was  an  established  fact. 
Daily  they  exchanged  swift,  furtive  glances  and 
when,  on  Corpus  Christi  day,  they  happened  to 
meet  in  this  isolated  spot,  their  cordial  greeting 
of  each  other  was  quite  instinctive.  They  were 
in  reality  old  friends,  for  they  had  read  the  same 
books,  admired  the  same  pictures,  loved  the  same 
composers  long  before  they  had  met.  They  could 
begin  their  conversation  where  each  had  inter- 
rupted it  with  his  like-minded  comrades  in  in- 
ternment. And  just  as  Europeans  in  a  far  coun- 
try will  often  pass  whole  days  in  the  saddle  for 
an  hour's  talk  with  a  man  of  their  own  kind,  so 
these  two  had  met  in  this  hidden  corner  as  often 
as  possible  and  their  farewell  was  not  an  easy 
one. 

249 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

Once  more  they  walked  through  the  house  of 
their  friendship  room  by  room  and  listened  to  the 
echo  that  each  had  awakened  in  the  other's  soul. 

The  sun  was  sinking  behind  the  great  moun- 
tain; the  air  quivered  as  with  dust  of  gold  and 
strewed  the  distant  peaks  with  a  heavy  glow. 
The  lake  lay  like  a  dim  mirror.  To  the  left  the 
Kigi  towered  from  among  its  tufted  cloudlets, 
rosy-peaked  against  the  sky  and  falling  like  a 
mantle  of  precious  stuff  into  the  water's  pastel 
blue.  Merlier's  hand  drew  a  nervous  circle  in 
the  air  as  though  he  meant  to  include  in  this, 
gesture  all  the  glory  and  peace  that  lay  before 
them.  "And  it  is  still  war?  Can  you  believe  it? 
Still  war !"  A  quiet  despair  was  in  his  voice. 

Gadsky  nodded  gravely.  "Up  in  the  wretched 
mountain  village  that  thought  tormented  me 
too.  I  had  a  secret  place,  a  projecting  ledge  of 
rock  and  often  there  at  sunset  I  was  forced  to 
imagine  how,  beyond  the  mountains,  the  shells 
were  still  screaming  and  men  were  still  tearing 
each  other  like  wild  beasts,  instead  of  going  in 
peace  into  their  houses  and  lighting  their  eve- 
ning lamps.  But  up  there  such  thoughts  were 
harder  to  bear  than  here.  Because  that  village 
had  really  grown  up  within  a  few  years,  because 
the  physicians  thought  that  precisely  this  spot 
had  an  extraordinary  healing  power.  And  so 
the  railroad  had  been  brought  here  to  transport 
to  a  year  or  two  of  life,  people  who,  in  the  val- 
leys, would  have  died  within  a  few  months  or 
even  weeks!  And  for  that  work  of  mercy  tun- 
250 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

nels  had  been  bored  and  tracks  laid  and  billions 
of  money  expended !  And  beyond  the  mountains 
crawled  the  endless  wagon  trains,  rattled  the 
cranes,  and  millions  of  arms  worked  and  the 
strength  of  whole  nations  was  poured  out  in  or- 
der to  reduce  the  lives  of  healthy  men  to  a  few 
hours  of  blood-soaked  torment.  At  first  the  con- 
trast maddened  me  so  that  I  could  have  run  out 
into  the  village  like  a  herald  of  doom.  But  in 
time  I  grew  calmer.  And  every  evening,  at  twi- 
light, the  great  square  would  be  filled  with  an 
international  crowd  waiting  for  news  from  the 
seat  of  war.  And  each  side,  if  the  other  had  suf- 
fered a  defeat,  broke  out  in  loud  jubilation. 
And  these  Frenchmen  and  Germans,  remember, 
were  not  parlor  strategists  who  were  ignorant 
of  pain  and  horror.  Not  one  man  there  who  had 
not  been  saved  as  by  a  miracle,  few  who  did  not 
shriek  with  horror  in  their  dreams  from  the 
poison  of  their  memories.  Yet  each  group  had  a 
good  time  counting  up  the  enemy's  prisoners, 
wounded  and  dead,  as  though  it  were  a  business 
transaction.  It  is  hard,  I  tell  you,  to  pity  man. 
For  no  animal  can  be  so  ferocious.  The  beasts 
slay  only  from  hunger  and  then  but  rarely  mem- 
bers of  their  own  species.  Man  alone  is  capable 
of  that  joy  in  the  hurt  of  others,  and  in  inflicting 
upon  others  what  he  most  dreads  for  himself. 
Since  he  can  be  frank,  since  the  pretense  of  con- 
siderateness  and  kindness  has  become  unneces- 
sary— that  is,  since  1914 — one  can  measure  the 
whole  force  of  his  evil  instincts.  If  before  the 

251 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

war  a  great  scientist  had  arisen  and  declared 
himself  capable  of  rooting  out  all  the  suffering 
in  the  world,  the  scourge  of  all  diseases,  but  had 
required  for  the  preparation  of  his  great  medi- 
cine one  month  of  such  sacrifices  as  the  nations 
have  made  for  dozens  of  months — I  assure  you 
that  the  world  would  have  remained  as  it  was. 
The  nations  would  not  have  endured  one  week  of 
such  suffering  for  a  noble  cause.  Ah,  my  dear 
friend,  you're  young  and  you  cling  to  your  belief 
in  humanity!  Ten  years  from  now  you'll  stop 
fishing  with  ideas  for  souls.  Men  cannot  be 
stirred  unless  you  appeal  to  their  bellies  or  their 
vanity.  Whoever  doesn't  come  to  see  that  in 
time,  will  crash  his  head  into  stone  walls." 

Merlier  shook  his  head  slowly.  He  looked  at 
the  mountains  and  the  sunset  and  spoke  slowly, 
as  though  his  answer  were  written  in  the  sky 
and  were  difficult  to  decipher.  "No,  I  won't  be- 
lieve that  ten  years  from  now  either.  And  you 
will  recant  long  before  the  ten  years  are  gone. 
For  don't  you  see  that  there  is  really  progress 
from  century  to  century?  Why,  at  the  beginning 
of  the  war,  did  every  State  find  it  necessary  to 
proclaim  that  it  had  been  attacked?  Two  hun- 
dred years  ago  each  would  have  said  quite 
frankly:  We're  going  out  to  kill  our  neighbors 
because  they  have  coast  cities  or  iron  mines  or 
over-sea  trade  or  fine  ships  that  we  could  well 
use !  Why  did  each  government,  even  that  of  the 
United  States  in  the  end,  persuade  its  soldiers 
that  they  were  defending  their  own  homes  and 
252 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

hearths!  No  government  dared  to  say  to  its 
men :  If  you  win  you  will  make  more  money,  eat 
more,  wear  handsomer  clothes,  all  at  the  expense 
of  the  enemy  whom  you  must  first,  however,  de- 
feat and  humiliate  before  you  can  rob  him !  But 
no  one  dared  to  ask  common  men  to  fight  for 
booty — no  one !  You  can  no  longer  wage  a  pred- 
atory war  in  the  West  without  hiding  your  evil 
purpose  from  the  people  behind  a  veil  of  fine 
phrases.  Isn't  that  in  itself  splendid?  Doesn't 
it  show  that  all  we  need  do  is  to  tear  asunder 
that  veil  of  phrases  in  order  to  save  the  world? 
If  you  must  feign  a  noble  cause  to  lead  men  into 
drumfire,  to  fight  and  to  die,  how  can  you  doubt 
their  power  to  sacrifice  and  endure  if  you  were 
to  substitute  a  truly  noble  cause  for  lies  and 
crimes?" 

Gadsky  smiled  silently.  He  loved  to  hear 
Merlier  speak.  His  gentle  German  pronuncia- 
tion with  its  rolling  consonants  sounded  delight- 
ful for  its  tinge  of  dialect.  Merlier  had  gone  to 
school  in  Berlin  up  to  his  fourteenth  year.  His 
father  had  been  a  teacher  of  French  there.  And 
it  was  a  daily  pleasure  to  Gadsky  to  hear  a 
French  infantryman  use  some  inimitably  Ber- 
linese  locution.  Then,  too,  Merlier  was  so  charm- 
ingly young  and  so  full  of  flaming  enthusiasm 
and  Gadsky  hated  to  rob  him  of  his  faith.  But 
after  a  long  pause  he  ventured :  "Perhaps  your 
countrymen  are  more  capable  of  enthusiasm  than 
mine.  And  they  did  once  bleed  for  the  rights  of 
man,  although  I  suspect  that  even  then  hunger 

253 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

played  a  greater  role  than  ideals.    But  you  can- 
not judge  an  alien  folk.  .  .  ." 

Merlier  interrupted  him  swiftly.  "There  is  no 
such  thing  as  an  alien  folk.  There  is  only  man- 
kind! Only  the  languages  differ  and  evil  men 
and  forces  exploit  that  difference.  Look  at  the 
two  of  us!  Are  we  not  infinitely  closer  to  each 
other  than  each  is  to  the  majority  of  his  com- 
patriots? And  your  peasant  lads  would  find 
ours  far  more  congenial  than  they  would  find 
you.  They  could  talk  about  their  harvests  and 
their  cattle  just  as  you  and  I  discuss  literature 
and  music.  They  belong  together  just  as  you  and 
I  belong  together  and  they  would  realize  that  if 
there  were  honest  interpreters  to  guide  them. 
Remember  that  the  artificial  differences  that  lead 
to  war  have  diminished  through  the  ages.  Once 
neighboring  cities  made  war  on  each  other  until 
highways  united  them  into  counties.  Then 
steam  and  electricity  created  the  great  powers 
of  to-day.  The  next  war,  if  there  is  to  be  one, 
will  be  between  continents — Asia,  perhaps, 
against  the  West.  And  at  last  the  world  will  be 
one  and  the  love  of  man  will  take  the  place  of 
patriotism.  You  smile?  Didn't  Christ  proclaim 
that  two  thousand  years  ago?  Did  not  every 
great  modern  State  have  to  erect  monuments, 
force  children  to  sing  patriotic  songs  in  the  pub- 
lic schools,  introduce  more  or  less  universal  mili- 
tary service,  and  fill  its  prisons  with  radicals  and 
objectors  in  order  to  stem  this  tide  of  develop- 
ment? It  won't  last  much  longer.  Suddenly 
254 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

the  great  turning-point  will  have  been  reached. 
You  and  I  will  both  live  to  see  it." 

Gadsky  sighed.  He  remembered  his  debates 
with  Weiler  and  with  Krtilow  and  looked  with 
deep  emotion  into  Merlier's  face.  They  were  all 
alike,  these  dear  dreamers  and  idealists.  In 
their  thoughts  they  built  up  the  world  of  their 
desires  and  confused  their  yearning  for  it  with  a 
possible  reality. 

"There  is  one  thing,  dear  Merlier,  that  you 
forget,"  he  said.  "In  spite  of  the  long  duration 
of  the  war,  it  is  only  a  certain  fraction  of  hu- 
manity that  is  feeling  its  horrors  in  its  own 
flesh  and  blood.  You  mustn't  imagine  that  the 
war  is  to  all  our  contemporaries  a  terrible  blood 
bath,  a  reversion  into  bestiality,  a  crime  that 
must  not  be  repeated.  You  forget  that  in  every 
country  there  are  behind  the  wall  of  warriors 
who  bleed,  the  great  armies  of  munition  makers 
whose  wages  are  magnificent.  You  forget  the 
merchants,  the  manufacturers,  the  farmers  and 
the  officers  of  higher  rank — all  that  great  host 
that  makes  money  or  reputation  out  of  every  but- 
ton that  we  wear.  The  twenty  millions  of  actual 
fighting  men  are  the  wares  that  are  carried  to 
market.  The  chafferers  in  the  rear  try  to  squeeze 
the  last  drop  of  profit  out  of  this  rare  opportun- 
ity. I  grant  you  that  the  poor  devils  upon  whom 
rests  the  actual  weight  of  the  war  would  be  a 
grateful  soil  for  the  seed  of  your  ideas.  But  too 
many  of  them  will  be,  when  it  is  all  over,  liter- 
ally a  part  of  the  soil.  And  it  is  possible — 

255 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

though  I  hope  I  am  wrong — that  the  survivors, 
especially  the  victors,  whoever  they  be,  will  not 
care  to  add  new  miseries  to  those  they  have 
barely  escaped.  And  the  evil  in  the  world  will 
not  fall  without  a  struggle.  For  those  who  will 
have  profited  from  this  vast  woe,  again  especial- 
ly in  the  victorious  countries,  will  be  so  famous 
and  so  rich  and  will  defend  their  war,  their 
great  and  profitable  war,  far  more  passionately 
than  any  man  has  ever  defended  his  fatherland  or 
his  ideals."  He  drew  a  newspaper  from  his 
pocket.  "If  you  read  the  papers  you  must  see 
with  how  precise  an  aim  more  and  more  hatred 
is  always  concentrated  on  Germany.  In  Ger- 
many itself,  to  be  sure,  since  the  dream  of  rapid 
victory  vanished,  those  in  power  know  quite  well 
that  their  methods  are  losing  in  popularity 
every  day  and  that  the  idle  talk  concerning  dis- 
armament and  the  family  of  man  is  really  rising 
to  the  dignity  of  an  earnest  yearning  and  a 
mighty  wave  of  action.  And  yet,  if,  when  it's  all 
over,  there  were  to  be  found  everywhere  a  great 
mass  of  men  who  desired  a  new  order  in  which 
each  nation  should  leave  the  other  what  it  has, 
in  order  to  preserve  its  own — what  whispers  and 
warnings  would  be  sounded,  what  inferences 
drawn  from  the  artificial  stimulation  of  hate? 
Men  would  be  told  in  each  country  in  turn :  'Ah, 
well  and  good,  if  the  others  were  like  you.  But 
while  you're  nursing  your  fine  dreams  the  hun- 
gry wolves  across  the  frontier  are  sharpening 
their  claws  and  teeth.'  It's  all  arranged  in  the 
256 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

most  sophisticated  and  intricate  way.  You  can't 
govern  a  mechanism  like  that  with  ideas  and 
feelings.  While  we  philosophize  here,  those  mas- 
ters drive  the  nations  into  slavery  and  sow  the 
seeds  of  hatred  so  deeply,  and  water  the  soil  of 
hatred  so  plentifully  with  blood,  that  their  great 
machine  will  be  in  no  permanent  danger  of  stand- 
ing idle.  Behind  both  fronts  stand  the  merchants 
who  are  equally  interested  in  their  wares  of  hu- 
man flesh  and  equally  careful  to  nurse  all  meth- 
ods that  will  keep  the  trade  from  dying  out. 
And  this  trade  has  been  carried  on  by  these  same 
methods  since  the  beginnings  of  history  .  .  ." 

"And  has  now  met  its  doom!"  Merlier  inter- 
rupted triumphantly.  "The  great  machine 
doesn't  function  perfectly  any  more.  The  stuff 
it  weaves  comes  threadbare  from  the  shuttle. 
Hold  it  against  the  light  and  the  truth  shines 
through.  As  long  as  three  years  ago — think  of 
that ! — an  illiterate  cowherd  from  the  Ardennes 
to  whom  I  had  to  read  bits  from  the  paper  in  our 
dugout,  because  he  couldn't  read,  said  to  me  that 
when  he  heard  the  rot  of  the  scribblers  for  the 
papers  it  seemed  to  him  as  if  he  had  a  vision  of 
two  men  at  fisticuffs,  each  trying  to  knock  the 
other's  teeth  down  his  throat  and  tear  out  his 
hair  and  each  howling  out:  'I'll  show  you  that 
I'm  the  finer,  more  cultured  and  better  of  us 
two!  There's  another  crack  at  your  jaw.  Do 
you  believe  now  that  I'm  gentler,  more  unselfish 
and  more  Christian  than  you?'  And  that  was  a 
mere  cowherd.  Men  aren't  as  stupid  as  you 

257 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

think.     They   will   surprise   the   masters   very 
soon." 

Gadsky  shrugged  his  shoulders.  He  couldn't 
conquer  his  old  dislike  of  the  common  people. 
He  had  lived  with  them  in  the  barracks.  "That 
was  a  good  deal  for  a  cowherd  to  realize,"  he 
said  drily.  "In  Germany,  as  you  know,  things 
are  different.  Every  one  can  read  and  reads  that 
things  are  very  well  as  they  are.  And  I  do  not 
deny  that  the  State  gave  the  people  much — good 
dwellings,  hospitals,  insurance  against  old  age 
and  illness,  free  medical  treatment,  excellent 
wages.  Who  was  better  taken  care  of  than  the 
German?  Who  read  better  books,  saw  better 
plays,  heard  better  music?  No  one.  And  so 
political  energy  and  thoughtfulness,  such  as  even 
your  dissatisfied  cowherd  may  have  had,  was 
lulled  to  rest.  And  I  almost  fear  that  those 
qualities  which  were  not  apparently  needed  be- 
fore the  war  are  now  in  part  atrophied.  And  so 
the  great  slaughter  can  go  on.  For  the  men  be- 
lieve that  they  are  fighting  to  defend  advantages 
which  were  perfectly  real  from  enemies  who 
wish  to  crush  them.  If  the  revolution  does  come 
in  Germany,  it  will  therefore  entail  a  more  tre- 
mendous inner  change  than  it  would  in  any  other 
land,  a  more  profound  shaking  up  of  all  the 
spiritual  foundations.  For  the  people  believed 
that  all  their  prosperity  and  civilization  was  a 
gift  of  1870,  a  gift  of  war,  rather  than  the  ex- 
pansion of  national  qualities  in  a  new  age.  And 
so  these  men  are  both  the  freest  and,  in  a  special 
258 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

and  narrow  sense,  the  most  enslaved  of  all." 
Merlier  had  jumped  up  and  walked  up  and 
down  before  Gadsky.  "And  how  is  it  with  us? 
The  poor  among  us  live  as  you  Germans  would 
not  permit  a  dog  to  live.  They  have  dirty  hos- 
pitals and  no  free  baths  and  are  fed  with  so- 
called  political  rights — which  is  cheaper,  no 
doubt.  It  is  much  worse  that  the  common,  daily 
life  of  our  people  has  been  stripped  for  a  festive 
garment,  a  symbol  of  liberty  that  hangs  in  the 
show-window  with  gold-embroidery  hiding  the 
moth  holes.  And  with  this  gilded  sham  we've 
deceived  the  men  across  our  frontiers  into  think- 
ing that  we  possess  something  of  which  we 
haven't,  in  reality,  a  shred.  It  was  a  viler  decep- 
tion than  yours.  .  .  ." 

"No,"  Gadsky  said  calmly ;  "it  was  not.  Your 
people  are  hungry  and  hungry  people  have  a 
chance  of  knowing  that  they  are  cheated  and 
may  one  day  smash  up  the  whole  evil  trade. 
Ours  were  fed  and  well  fed  and  I  am  afraid.  .  . ." 
Merlier  stopped  and  nodded  at  Gadsky  with  a 
smile.  "There  we  are  at  our  old  trick  of  defend- 
ing each  other's  country  and  being  in  all  likeli- 
hood uncharitable  to  our  own  because  we  have  a 
keener  sense  of  its  shortcomings.  How  simple 
everything  would  be  if  men  would  only  be  a  bit 
more  rational.  You  have,  I  remember,  a  neat 
proverb  to  the  effect  that  every  man  should  be 
careful  to  keep  just  his  own  threshold  clean.  The 
war  could  end  to-day  if  both  sides  would  heed 
that  simple  wisdom  as  you  and  I  do.  I  abuse 

259 


THE  JUDGMENT  OP  PEACE 

France  because  I  know  her  faults,  you  abuse 
Germany  because  you  feel  her  faults  to  be  a  part 
of  your  human  responsibility.  Unfortunately, 
most  men  fail  to  cure  the  ills  they  have  and  con- 
sole themselves  with  the  fact  that  their  neighbor 
suffers  from  worse  ones.  When  I  tell  my  com- 
rades concerning  the  sins  of  our  chauvinists  and 
imperialists,  they  yell  at  me:  'Et  les  boches?' 
You  have  had  a  similar  experience  among  your 
comrades,  of  course.  In  simpler  days  it  never 
occurred  to  a  pickpocket  to  defend  his  trade  be- 
cause there  were  probably  murderers  and  burg- 
lars in  the  world.  To-day  all  the  nations  have 
grown  so  modest  that  each  is  quite  satisfied  if 
it  can  only  believe  itself  less  base  than  the 
enemy."  He  fell  silent  for  a  moment.  Then  he 
threw  his  arms  into  the  air  and  said :  "And  they 
must  all  become  good — all !" 

Gadsky,  too,  had  slowly  arisen  and  stepped  to 
the  edge  of  the  little  meadow.  Sadly  he  surveyed 
the  radiant  scene  below  him.  The  passionate 
cry  of  Merlier  brought  to  his  face  a  weary  and 
indulgent  smile.  "Perhaps  they  will  all  become 
good  and  just  and  even  unselfish  and  love  their 
neighbor  as  themselves,  even  when  he  wears  a 
different  raiment  and  speaks  another  tongue! 
Perhaps!  They  have  even  now  been  trained  to 
restrain  their  envy  of  a  competitor  around  the 
corner,  and  no  longer  murder  a  fellow  tribesman 
because  his  wheat  is  taller  than  theirs  or  his 
cattle  more  fecund.  So  why  shouldn't  they  learn 
to  endure  the  prosperity  of  those  whom  they  do 
260 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

not  even  see?  The  only  question  is:  Will  they 
be  ordered  to  feel  and  act  so?  For  I  am  con- 
vinced that  the  redemption  of  men  will  not  come 
from  among  themselves.  Ah,  if  I  could  only  share 
the  trust  that  you  idealists  have  in  the  poor  and 
the  disinherited !  But  they  have  never  yet  been 
freed  by  their  own  will  and  power.  They  have 
always  clung  to  their  masters  and  crucified  their 
saviors.  All  liberty  has  been  handed  them  from 
above  as  completely  prepared  and  wrapped  as  a 
Christmas  gift.  Serfdom  in  Europe  was  abol- 
ished not  because  the  peasants  came  with  scythes 
and  pitchforks,  but  because  the  conscience  of  the 
masters  could  no  longer  endure  treating  men  like 
beasts.  The  JewTs  did  not  emerge  from  their 
ghettos  until  a  few  free  and  strong  men  helped 
them  pull  down  the  walls.  The  negro  slaves  of 
North  America  were  liberated  because  the  domi- 
nant Europeans  suffered  so  in  their  conscience 
that  they — and  not  the  oppressed  negroes — 
fought  for  them  during  four  years.  The  Count 
de  Mirabeau  did  more  for  your  famous  revolution 
than  ten  thousand  sansculottes.  And  so  it  will 
come  this  time  if  the  change  is  to  be  permanent. 
Not  till  the  rich  man  can  bear  no  meat  that 
tastes  of  the  sweat  of  helots,  not  till  kings  and 
prime  ministers  and  generals  are  revolted  by  the 
blood  that  stains  their  laurels — not  until  then 
can  that  become  concrete  reality  of  which  you 
and  others  like  you  dream.  Why  will  you  waste 
your  strength?  If  you  would  be  heard  you  must 
address  the  head  and  not  the  feet." 

261 


THE  JUDGMENT  OP  PEACE 

Merlier  faced  Gadsky  with  a  smile  of  victory 
and  said  triumphantly:  "You  speak  of  'above' 
and  'below'  as  though  these  represented  un- 
changeable concepts  like  North  and  South. 
What  is  'above'?  It  is  that  which  men  aim  at — 
the  height  that  man  would  reach.  Transfer  that 
goal  of  desire  to  the  valley  and  your  'below'  has 
become  an  'above.'  The  trouble  hitherto  has 
been  that  the  weak  and  the  poor  have  themselves 
been  so  greatly  in  love  with  power  and  wealth. 
That  is  what  we  must  change  and  therefore  we 
turn  to  the  lowly.  It  is  they  who  have  made  the 
head — say  rather  the  stomach  and  the  purse — 
what  it  is  by  their  desire  and  envy  of  it.  The 
false  prophets  have  had  an  easy  time  so  far.  It 
was  enough  to  lead  them  to  the  window  of  a 
luxurious  restaurant  and  show  them  the  rich 
eating  pheasants  and  drinking  champagne.  Why 
waste  one's  words,  or  struggle  for  souls,  or  dig 
to  the  ultimate  evil,  when  that  simple  process 
gained  you  the  discipleship  of  all  the  hungry? 
You  simply  said  to  them:  'Those  people  are 
growing  fat  on  your  labor  while  you  starve.  Fol- 
low me  and  you  will  sit  in  there  feasting  while 
their  faces  will  be  pale  against  the  panes!  So 
any  man  could  become  a  leader  and  was  really 
doing  the  work  of  the  rich  whom  he  feigned  to 
attack.  For  it  was  thus  that  arose  the  false 
glamor  of  money  that  blinds  the  conscience  of 
men.  The  people  in  the  restaurant  were  nat- 
urally confirmed  in  their  belief  that  they  had 
achieved  something  desirable  when  every  bite 
262 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

they  took  was  accompanied  by  the  envy  of  a  mul- 
titude. How  should  their  shame  grow  articulate 
when  the  slaves  desired  only  to  sit  in  their 
seats  and  act  likewise?  People  chatter  a  lot  of 
nonsense  to  the  effect  that  the  morality  current 
within  a  social  group  should  be  transferred  to 
international  relations  and  that  thus  war  would 
become  impossible.  As  if,  in  ordinary  civil  life, 
anything  had  ever  counted  but  victory!  Who- 
ever wanted  to  be  respected  by  all  men  and  live 
a  goodly  life  was  in  some  way  responsible  for 
the  enslavement  of  his  workmen,  his  clients  or 
his  customers.  He  had  to  make  money  out  of 
the  needs  of  others,  to  make  .such  a  peace 
with  his  beaten  enemies  or  competitors  as  would 
serve  only  his  interests  and  which  had  to  be  up- 
held by  force.  In  a  word,  he  acted  precisely  as 
the  State  does.  Everywhere  hitherto  the  strong 
man  had  all  rights,  the  weak  man  all  duties; 
everywhere  pride  flourished  and  not  a  conscious- 
ness of  guilt,  envy  instead  of  contempt.  If, 
therefore,  we  succeed  in  changing  the  soul  of  the 
individual,  so  that  he  becomes  ashamed  of  his 
self-seeking  even  when  it  is  profitable,  the  States 
will  follow  suit  and  the  world  will  be  saved. 
And  we  must  succeed — we  must!  Ah,  you  may 
smile !  But  don't  you  see  how  little  is  needed  to 
blow  down  this  house  of  cards  which  is  held  to- 
gether even  now  only  by  a  relentless  exercise  of 
force?  You  said  yourself  a  while  ago  that  one 
must  appeal  to  people's  appetite  or  to  their  van- 
ity to  influence  them.  Well,  we  will  use  their 

263 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

vanity.  The  single  abusive  word  'slacker5  has 
power  enough  within  the  present  order  to  turn 
the  most  arrant  cowards  into  men  who  will  en- 
dure the  extremest  danger  and  pain.  Do  you 
believe  that  other  words  will  be  less  potent  when 
they  carry  an  equally  dishonorable  implication? 
Will  it  be  harder  to  force  men  to  magnanimity 
and  sympathy  than  it  is  now  to  force  them  to 
risk  pain  and  despise  death?  Take  our  French 
duelists  and  your  German  fraternity  students 
with  their  scratched  faces  and  transport  them 
both  to  England  where  dueling  is  seriously 
in  disrepute.  They'll  try  to  satisfy  their  vanity 
in  other  ways,  to  be  sure.  But  they  assuredly 
won't  pick  quarrels  of  so-called  technical  honor. 
Human  vanity  is  like  a  mighty  locomotive  that 
is  always  under  steam  but  that  can  just  as  easily 
do  useful  work  on  the  tracks  and  in  the  station 
as  it  can  smash  walls  and  kill  men.  It  all  de- 
pends on  the  direction  of  the  tracks  and  the  posi- 
tion of  the  switch.  Bring  it  about  that  every  one 
who  gorges  himself  on  the  hunger  of  others  is 
despised,  that  every  one — a  State  or  an  individ- 
Jual — is  ostracized  and  contemned  if  he  casts  down 
the  weak  instead  of  lifting  him  up — accomplish 
this,  and  wealth  will  lose  its  glamor  and  attrac- 
tion and  the  nations  be  ashamed  of  their  victories 
of  force.  And  that's  the  way  we're  going  to  turn 
the  switch  now.  And  you  will  have  to  help,  too. 
Every  man  must  help  in  his  own  country,  for 
every  country  is  in  equal  need.  But  it  will  be 
much  easier  than  most  people  believe." 
264 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

Gadsky  was  touched  by  the  fine  light  in  his 
friend's  eyes.  He  laid  his  hand  on  Merlier's 
shoulder  and  said  gently :  "I  shall  gladly  be  one 
of  your  apostles  even  though  I  cannot  share  your 
faith.  I  am  afraid  that  nothing  was  so  ill  fitted 
to  turn  humanity  to  new  paths  as  this  very  war, 
which  has  raised  self-seeking  to  new  heights  and 
will,  in  the  case  of  the  ultimate  victors,  heighten 
it  to  the  point  of  utter  madness.  How  can  .  .  ." 

"For  that  very  reason,"  Merlier  cried,  and 
stretched  out  his  arms  as  though  he  would  em- 
brace the  world.  "Have  not  these  four  years 
taught  every  nation  and  every  individual  that 
you  cannot  seek  to  enslave  others  without  rob- 
bing yourself  of  all  freedom?  Is  it  not  clear  by 
this  time  that  you  cannot  rob  your  neighbor 
and  not  live  thereafter  booted  and  spurred  and 
with  your  rifle  in  your  very  bed?  Thrice  witnTn 
fifty  years  your  countrymen  won  an  easy  vic- 
tory, and  that  was  bad  for  them  and  it  was  also 
bad  that  an  increase  of  prosperity  followed  each 
victory  and  seemed,  at  least,  to  spring  from  it. 
But  now  both  they  and  the  rest  of  the  world  must 
at  last  be  persuaded  that  the  game  is  not  worth 
the  candle.  There  was  a  time  when  the  Germans 
were  ahead  of  us  all ;  they  had  found  their  souls 
at  a  time  when  we  still  worshiped  force  and 
were  swollen  with  pride  each  time  that  we  broke 
the  back  of  some  weaker  people.  Then  we  reached 
the  point  of  satiation  and  the  truth  might  per- 
haps have  dawned  on  our  full  stomachs.  But, 
alas,  Germany  was  not  satiated.  Germany  was 

265 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

still  hungry  as  we  had  been  in  older  days.  And 
in  her  there  awakened  the  hunger  which  we  had 
already  satisfied.  And  in  that  contrast  lies  the 
source  of  the  unreasoning  and  stupid  hatred  that 
has  hurt  your  people  so  tragically.  But  though 
your  national  claims  are  not  unjust,  the  hour  to 
enforce  them  as  we  always  enforced  ours  has 
gone  by — I  trust  that  it  has  gone  by.  Much  will 
depend  upon  the  peace  when  it  comes — much! 
If  it  is  an  evil  peace,  Germany  will  be  justified 
not  in  her  best  but  in  her  worst  motives  and  ac- 
tions. If  it  is  a  good  peace  she  will  be  cleansed 
and  we  shall  be  cleansed  with  her.  Ah,  all  this 
blood  cannot,  cannot  have  been  shed  in  vain! 
The  peace  must  be  just  and  good  and  things  must 
return  to  their  finest  level.  Always  we  have 
given  our  ideas  to  Germany  to  nurse  for  us,  as 
we  give  our  children  in  France  to  strong  and 
sane  people  in  the  country  and  do  not  ask  them 
back  until  they  themselves  are  strong  and  sane. 
And  like  a  faithful  nurse,  Germany  developed  all 
our  ideas,  whether  they  consisted  of  a  new  motor 
or  of  a  philosophical  system.  And  so  it  will  be 
again.  In  our  delight  over  our  liberation  from 
our  nobles  we  have  given  ourselves  up  defense- 
lessly  to  the  scorpions  of  capitalism.  And  we 
have  nothing  lef Uof  the  rights  of  man  for  which 
we  once  fought  but  conscription,  which  once 
upon  a  time  we  assumed  gladly  as  a  means  of 
self-defense !  Your  countrymen,  solid  and  thor- 
ough as  they  are,  have  taken  the  opposite  course 
—they  began  by  cultivating  their  duties  and  will 
266 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

now  arise  to  defend  their  rights.  And  the  hands 
which  are  now  lonely — yours  and  ours — will  find 
each  other.  For  there  is  one  language  that  is 
spoken  in  all  the  world.  The  starving  Hindoo 
coolie  understands  it  as  well  as  the  men  who,  de- 
serted by  all  but  death,  have  lain  opposite  each 
other — it  is  the  language  of  pain  and  the  lan- 
guage of  the  soul  that  rebels  against  the  injustice 
that  it  has  suffered.  And  all  nations  have  been 
imprisoned  behind  boundaries  and  given  uniform 
varnishes  and  have  been  egged  on  against  each 
other,  and  have  been  caught  in  nets  of  ostensible 
duties  and  honors  in  order  that  that  universal 
speech  might  be  silenced.  But  that  is  over !  But 
for  that  very  reason  the  suffering  had  to  be  so  un- 
endurably  monstrous  in  order  that  all  the  fetters 
might  snap  like  paper  thread !  The  whole  world 
is  in  labor  and  is  bearing  the  rights  of  man  that 
have  been  in  her  womb  for  two  hundred  years 
and  are  now  to  see  the  light  completely  formed 
for  all  time.  Be  sure  of  that !" 

His  pleasant  young  voice  shook.  He  was  un- 
manned by  the  depth  of  his  own  faith.  He  turned 
away  and  held  out  his  hand  to  Gadsky. 

Gadsky  took  the  hand  in  both  of  his.  Moved 
beyond  his  wont  and  with  a  sigh  he  said :  "Let 
us  hope  sol" 

Behind  the  mountains  the  sun  showed  its  ulti- 
mate splendor  and  laid  a  bar  of  gold  upon  the 
ridges.  All  the  colors  of  the  scene  flamed  up 
once  more  as  though  nature  itself  was  for  a  mo- 

287 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

ment  radiant  with  the  hopes  that  lived  in  Mer- 
lier's  eyes. 

Gadsky  remembered  a  picture,  a  poor  litho- 
graph that  he  had  seen  somewhere  in  the  corri- 
dor of  an  inn.  It  was  called  "The  Covenant  of 
Griitli."  It  showed  a  mountain  meadow  flooded 
by  sun  or  moonlight  and  three  quaint  old  men 
with  flowing  beards  who  raised  their  hands  in 
solemn  affirmation.  Thus  had  the  Swiss  Kepub- 
lic  been  founded.  And  was  not  the  peace  that 
filled  this  evening  scene,  was  not  this  whole 
blessed  land  which,  in  the  midst  of  a  world's 
rage  and  hate,  alone  held  human  life  a  holy  thing 
— was  it  not  rooted  in  that  ancient  oath? 

He  looked  at  Merlier,  saw  his  own  gray  sleeve 
melt  into  his  friend's  blue  one  and  repeated,  put- 
ting all  his  heart  into  the  words:  "Let  us  hope 

80 !" 

A  gray  and  ugly  day  showed  through  the  rain- 
swept panes  as  the  train  pulled  out  of  the  sta- 
tion at  Lucerne.  The  crowded  carriage  smelled 
of  damp  garments  and  wilted  flowers ;  the  leaden 
heaviness  of  the  morning  lay  in  all  limbs  and  the 
convulsive  merriment,  the  exaggerated  mood 
that  whirred  about  him  heightened  Gadsky's  dis- 
couraged sadness  to  an  aggressive  irritation 
which  he  found  it  difficult  to  suppress.  The 
crude  jests,  the  loud  laughter  were  like  blows  to 
him.  Why  did  these  men  act  as  though  a  fine 
dream  of  theirs  were  approaching  its  fulfillment, 
as  though  they  had  really  been  eager  to  be  trans- 
268 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

ported  back  to  their  own  country  which,  as 
things  were,  would  mean  again  the  barracks  and 
drill  and,  in  the  end,  the  trenches?  Had  he  not 
seen  them  await  the  decision  full  of  dread?  Only 
two  elderly  men  who  yearned  for  their  families 
had  reported  voluntarily  when  first  the  question 
of  a  possible  exchange  of  prisoners  had  come  up 
in  the  hospital.  Whence  did  the  others  take  the 
courage  to  act  as  merrily  now  as  though  they  had 
never  confessed  their  true  and  secret  feelings  to 
each  other?  Was  it,  or  was  it  not,  an  empty  pre- 
tense? .  .  .  Could  the  two  weeks'  leave,  the 
short  period  of  grace  that  would  be  granted 
them,  make  them  blind  to  all  the  horrors  that 
awaited  them  as  behind  a  screen  of  gaudy  paper? 
Gadsky  listened  to  the  rhythmic  thumping  of 
the  wheels,  stared  out  into  the  dripping  land- 
scape, sought  in  vain  not  to  hear  the  words  and 
cries  that  reminded  him  of  school  children  re- 
turning home.  He  would  like  to  have  had  his 
friends  here — Weiler,  for  instance,  or  that  mys- 
terious stretcher-bearer !  They  would,  of  course, 
have  defended  this  dull,  patient,  murderous 
crowd  against  all  his  accusations!  What  did 
these  innocent  souls  really  hope  for?  What  for- 
tified their  unshakable  faith  in  the  "people"? 
And  had  not  Merlier,  too,  no  longer  ago  than  the 
day  before,  spoken  with  deep  conviction  of  the 
awakening  of  these  sleepers,  spoken  exactly  as 
Weiler  would  have  done?  Were  his  friends 
blind?  Did  not  one  glance  into  this  carriage 
suffice  to  cure  one  forever  of  such  dreams? 

269 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

"Awakening?"  "A  new  vanity?"  What  force 
would  be  strong  enough  to  change  the  aim  and  di- 
rection of  these  lives,  since  even  the  experiences 
of  the  war  had  been  obliterated,  leaving  no  trace, 
by  the  prospect  of  a  two  weeks'  vacation  at  home? 

But  as  his  eyes  searched  the  men  before  him 
his  anger  changed  to  honest  envy.  A  careless 
and  sincere  happiness  which  could  not  be  merely 
assumed  gleamed  from  all  faces.  Yet  they  all 
brought  home  the  same  memories ;  all  had  sworn 
a  hundred  times  that  no  power  on  earth  could 
force  them  back  into  the  slaughter!  Every  one 
who  sat  here  would  have  cried  out  in  horror  and 
rage  if  in  the  field  or  in  foreign  captivity  a 
prophet  had  told  him  that  a  two  weeks'  leave  of 
absence  would  make  him  subservient  once  more 
to  the  machine  of  war.  There  was  not  one  man 
in  the  whole  train  who  had  not  an  hundred  times 
clenched  his  fists,  murmured  dark  oaths  of  ven- 
geance, spoken  somber  and  secret  words  even  in 
Switzerland  against  the  shamelessness  of  those 
on  the  press  and  behind  it  who  released  anew 
the  indignation  of  the  civilian  populations  and 
sought  to  hide  the  facts  of  the  war  behind  a  veil 
of  rhetoric.  They  had  likened  this  to  the  drum- 
taps  which  accompany  a  man  to  execution.  There 
was  not  one  here  who,  in  this  return  home,  was 
not  acting  the  traitor  to  his  own  soul  and  to  all 
his  comrades.  Not  one  seemed  to  remember  his 
sacred  promise  to  speak  out  and  spread  the  truth 
if  ever,  as  the  phrase  went,  he  got  home  once 
more! 
270 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

Oh,  how  gladly  he  would  have  leaped  up  and 
hurled  that  sentence  back  at  those  who  had  re- 
peated it  so  many  thousand  times.  He  could  have 
taken  each  individual  by  the  shoulder  and  struck 
him  for  his  base  forgetfulness.  His  nails  sank 
into  his  own  flesh,  so  great  was  his  suffering  un- 
der this  assault  of  false  and  empty  noise. 

He  closed  his  eyes  and  all  that  he  had  suffered 
in  the  past  two  years  traveled  through  his  soul. 
He  saw  Weiler  foaming  at  the  mouth,,  strapped 
to  the  stretcher,  he  saw  the  disemboweled  body 
of  Frobel,  the  crashed-in  face  of  the  Jew;  he 
heard  the  captain  cry  out  like  a  tortured  animal 
as  the  skin  flapped  over  his  eye.  He  looked  at  his 
own  hands  and  felt  the  great,  crimson  welt  on 
his  chest  and  thought  of  the  little  Frenchman 
with  the  timid  mustache,  the  first  brother  man 
whom  he  had  slain.  And  finally  he  felt  a  dim 
compassion  for  himself  too,  at  the  recollection 
of  his  passive  martyrdom  in  the  French  hospital 
and  on  that  terrible  transport  train  where  a 
raw  beast  played  with  him  as  though  he  were  a 
captured  insect. 

And  all  these  things  had  suddenly  lost  their 
significance  and  were  supposed  to  fade  into  noth- 
ingness before  the  insignia  on  the  collar  of  Ser- 
geant Xavier  Stuff ! 

The  thought  ate  into  him  like  fire.  Every  fiber 
of  his  body  rebelled  against  the  injustice.  He 
could  see  himself  in  the  barracks,  standing  at 
attention,  condescendingly  greeted  by  the  ser- 
geant who  might  let  him  wait  at  the  door,  who 

271 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

could  conceivably  insult  him  or  even  place  him 
under  arrest  as  though  nothing  had  happened 
within  the  two  years!  The  nameless  bitterness 
which  Mathilde's  first  visit  had  aroused  in  him 
broke  out  in  him  again,  throttled  him  and  made 
him  resolve  not  to  submit,  not  to  be  put  off  with 
two  weeks  like  the  others! 

Mght  after  night  Stuff  had  lain  in  his  com- 
fortable bed  beside  his  large  spouse.  Now  the 
man  could  rule  him  again !  No !  If  no  one  else 
had  any  piety  toward  his  own  torments — he 
would  set  them  an  example !  He  would  speak  out 
the  words  that  he  had  sworn  to  speak  when 
death  was  his  chief  witness.  It  was  well  that  he 
had,  first  of  all,  to  report  at  the  barracks  to  wait 
on  Sergeant  Stuff.  It  would  serve  to  harden  his 
purpose.  No  beseeching  of  Mathilde  would  deter 
him.  They  could  all  keep  their  indulgence  for 
the  slackers  and  the  released.  He  wanted  no 
favor.  He  needed  justice ! 

He  would  raise  his  pierced  lung  and  his  whit- 
ening temples  like  a  banner  for  all  the  world  to 
see !  He  would  proclaim  the  truth  that  he  who 
came  home  broken  and  patched  need  not  bow 
down  to  any  one,  but  could  demand  the  respect 
of  those  who  had  been  fed  and  warmed  far  from 
all  danger,  even  though  braids  and  stars,  even 
though  diamonds  adorned  their  uniforms. 

And  he  would  refuse  his  release  from  further 
service !  He  would  reject  any  exceptional  treat- 
ment! He  desired  for  himself  only  what  every 
man  should  demand.  And  it  was  this — that  no 
272 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

one  should  be  sent  twice  into  the  firing-line,  that 
no  one  should  sweat  the  bloody  sweat  twice  so 
long  as  there  were  men  in  the  land  who,  under 
whatever  pretext,  had  not  yet  staked  their  lives 
nor  put  the  burden  of  slaughter  on  their  souls. 

This  fight  he  would  fight  to  the  finish — come 
what  might.  He  threw  back  his  head  proudly, 
uplifted  by  his  resolve.  And  then  he  looked  about 
frightened,  as  though  awakening  from  a  deep 
dream.  For  he  had  been  but  dimly  aware  in 
the  midst  of  his  thoughts  of  the  detrainment  and 
the  boarding  of  the  steamer.  But  he  was  al- 
ready on  its  deck  and  about  him  were  the  waters 
of  Lake  Constance  and  the  Swiss  shore  was  softly 
receding  and  from  the  mast  fluttered  the  im- 
perial flag. 

He  hastened  forward  where  the  crowding  was 
not  so  great  and  tried  to  remember  how  he  had 
come  here.  Dimly,  as  though  years  lay  between, 
the  images  arose  before  him — the  thrusting  and 
pushing,  the  examination  of  his  papers,  the  pud- 
dles into  which,  tottering  under  one's  heavy  lug- 
gage, one  was  propelled.  Then  laughter  and  the 
thundering  of  many  heavy  heels  on  a  bridge. 
He  could  hardly  believe  that  all  this  had  hap- 
pened. 

Lake  Constance! 

A  dust-like  rain  swept  against  his  face.  The 
ship  plowed  its  way  into  the  grayish  wall  of  fog 
that  still  kept  the  German  shore  from  view. 

He  remembered  his  last  trip  across  the  lake. 
Where  the  army  packs  towered,  the  leather  trav- 

273 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

eling  bags  had  lain.  And  when  the  shore  ap- 
peared, a  charming  little  Viennese  lady  had  be- 
gun to  cry  because  she  had  to  return  to  St.  Mo- 
ritz.  Dear  God,  how  easy  life  had  been  once  upon 
a  time.  .  .  . 

He  stepped  to  the  railing  to  take  his  leave  of 
Switzerland.  But  the  shore  had  disappeared. 
The  steamer  was  wrapped  round  by  the  fog  as  by 
wet  clothes.  He  could  see  only  the  side-wheel 
shovel  the  water  into  foam  and  the  banner  on 
the  masthead. 

Gadsky  wanted  to  sit  down  but  the  crowd  was 
surging  forward.  In  the  other  direction  there 
was  no  longer  anything  to  see.  Soon  it  was  im- 
possible to  move.  Each  wanted  to  be  the  first  to 
see  the  shore  of  the  fatherland  emerge  from  the 
fog.  Round  about  him  bottles  were  opened  and 
men  who  had  not  seen  each  other  since  the  oc- 
casion of  their  capture  celebrated  this  meeting 
with  delight.  A  giant  of  the  Cameroon  territori- 
als recognized  his  father  in  the  person  of  a 
wrinkled  little  reservist;  an  officer  from  the  up- 
per deck  nodded  with  kind  condescension  to 
where,  amid  the  crowd,  he  recognized  one  of  his 
recruits  and  called  to  him  by  name.  Joy  radi- 
ated from  all  faces  as  though  these  men  were 
really  returning  to  liberty  or  to  their  fatherland 
in  its  normal  and  noble  sense. 

Gadsky  looked  in  vain  for  some  breach  in  the 
human  wall  about  him.  What  was  that?  He 
swung  around.  But  his  name  had  been  called. 
It  was  too  late  for  escape.  It  was  the  sergeant 
274 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

had  reported  the  Ducre"cy  episode  and  had 
then  pursued  him  with  his  small  maliciousness 
until  his  transfer  to  Lucerne  had  put  an  end  to 
that.  He  approached  Gadsky  with  a  grin  and 
jeered  in  his  ugly  cracked  voice:  "You  don't 
look  very  happy !  I  suppose  you'd  rather  go  back 
to  the  French  prison  camp  hobnobbing  with  the 
fat  major?" 

Gadsky  didn't  answer.  He  stood  at  attention, 
annoyed,  as  of  old,  by  the  mechanical  function- 
ing of  his  muscles  at  the  sight  of  a  sergeant's 
coat.  It  recalled  Stuff,  who  had  trained  him  so 
perfectly. 

"Of  course,  you  won't  be  such  a  big  man  in  the 
army  as  you  were  with  those  French  people!" 
the  sergeant  continued,  and  his  bony  face  glowed 
with  malicious  pleasure.  "Where  are  you  sta- 
tioned, anyhow?" 

Gadsky  coldly  named  the  city  and  returned 
the  gaze  of  the  evil,  little  eyes.  They  were  bound 
for  the  same  place.  He  knew  that  from  the  pris- 
on-camp, where  he  had  had  charge  of  the  mail. 
The  thought  flamed  up  in  him  at  once  that  this 
vengeful  creature  would  blacken  his  character  to 
Stuff. 

He  trembled  at  the  danger  of  further  ques- 
tions, and  breathed  a  sigh  of  relief  when  the  man 
finally  returned  to  the  group  of  his  friends  with 
a  condescending  inclination  of  the  head.  His 
release  from  further  service  couldn't  be  accom- 
plished in  a  day  or  even  a  week,  no  matter  what 
influences  Mathilde  had  set  in  motion.  It  only 

275 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

needed  the  evil  accident  of  this  man's  meeting 
Stuff  to  give  the  latter  as  well  as  his  superiors  the 
necessary  military  pretext  to  refuse. 

Was  he  afraid?  Surely  not!  He  had  no  rea- 
son to  cringe!  He  could  have  beaten  his  own 
body  for  harboring  this  unworthy  fear.  What 
was  the  gossip  of  two  sergeants  to  him.  He  came 
from  captivity.  Deep  scars  were  on  his  body. 
He  would  not  forget  that  again ! 

He  tried,  with  the  utmost  determination,  to 
make  his  way  through  the  crowd.  But  the  path 
led  by  a  group  of  non-commissioned  officers;  he 
would  have  actually  to  brush  the  detestable  ser- 
geant with  his  sleeve.  And  just  as  he  had  nearly 
succeeded  in  getting  past,  a  merry  group  came 
from  the  opposite  direction  and  forced  him  into 
the  circle  he  desired  most  to  avoid. 

"I'll  ask  to  be  assigned  to  a  camp  of  French 
prisoners,"  he  heard  one  of  the  men  say.  "And 
the  fellows  that  I  get  hold  of  won't  have  a  picnic, 
believe  me.  For  eighteen  bloody  months  their 
countrymen  wiped  their  heels  on  me.  I'll  knock 
the  hell  out  of  'em!" 

He  didn't  stop  to  hear  more.  A  darkness  had 
descended  on  his  eyes,  a  nausea  had  arisen  from 
his  stomach.  Here  was  the  spirit  of  the  war,  the 
universal  spirit  of  the  war.  Hope  was  folly. 
Kegardlessly  he  shoved  aside  all  who  blocked 
his  way,  careless  of  the  angry  words  that  pur- 
sued him,  fought  his  way  through  and  reached 
the  other  end  of  the  ship.  He  was  covered  with 
sweat.  But  it  was  quieter  here.  There  were 
only  small  groups  here — gray-haired  men  of  the 
276 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

last  line  of  reserves,  cripples  with  crutches,  and 
under  the  fluttering  flag,  huddled  in  traveling 
robes,  the  terrible  wreck  of  a  man  in  a  wheel- 
chair. 

Gadsky  stood  bending  out  over  the  railing  and 
stared  into  the  pearly  wake  left  by  the  steamer. 
He  thought  of  Merlier.  .  .  .  These  were  the  peo- 
ple whom  he  wanted  to  awaken  to  goodness. 
These  were  the  carriers  of  a  new  future!  Be- 
cause they  knew  from  their  own  sufferings  how 
hard  a  lot  it  is  to  be  defenseless  in  the  hands 
of  hostile  men,  they  desired  to  inflict  the  same 
fate  on  others.  Not  even  their  own  pain  could 
make  them  merciful  to  another's.  And  if  these 
bitter  memories  had  no  power  over  their  hearts, 
what  words  could  ever  win  them?  How  could 
another's  martyrdom  inspire  them?  How  could 
a  brave  man's  example  spur  them  on?  How 
could  ideas  that  no  one  was  able  to  impress  on 
them  become  their  motives? 

"Eight!"  .  .  .  "Human  dignity!"  .  .  .  Gad- 
sky  laughed  a  sarcastic  laugh  and  looked  sus- 
piciously at  the  men  behind  him  who  were  car- 
rying on  a  loud  conversation.  A  broad-shoul- 
dered marine,  smoking  a  pipe,  was  talking  con- 
descendingly to  the  crew  of  the  lake  steamer. 
And  these  inland  sailors  looked  reverently  up  at 
the  sailor  of  the  deep  seas  and  shook  their  heads 
in  awe  and  wonder. 

Gadsky  heard  fragments  of  their  talk — mere 
fragments,  but  the  words  "prisoners  of  war" 
and  "war-captivity"  clung  to  his  mind  and 
suddenly  assumed  a  strange  and  different  and 

277 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

ghastly  reasonableness  of  sound  and  meaning. 

"Prisoner  of  war !"  He  turned  the  word  about 
as  though  it  were  a  rare  coin.  Did  that  mean: 
Imprisoned  by  the  war?  Then  he  was  surely 
on  the  way  back  to  that  fateful  captivity  and  not 
returning  from  it! 

The  ship  was  sailing  straight  into  the  war. 
Hidden  behind  the  fog  was  the  unspeakable  maw 
of  the  war  which  would  crunch  him  between  its 
grinders  the  moment  he  set  foot  on  land. 

"Prisoner  of  war!"  A  single  sentence  from 
the  conversation  he  had  held  with  Merlier  twen- 
ty-four hours  earlier  would  almost  suffice  to 
bring  him  to  the  gallows  in  that  captivity  of  war 
to  which  he  was  going.  For  wherever  war  is, 
thought  is  slain.  War  in  all  lands  has  to  make 
its  captives  dumb  and  blind.  A  thinking  army 
has  no  morale.  He  would  have  to  choke  in  in- 
tolerable silence.  There  would  be  silence  in  the 
barracks,  silence  on  the  street,  silence  wherever 
strange  ears  could  overhear.  .  .  . 

"Prisoner  of  war!" 

With  wild  eyes  he  looked  about  him.  He  saw 
the  men  lift  up  their  packs  and  storm  forward. 
Mechanically  he  shouldered  his  own  pack  too  and 
fastened  the  straps  and  felt  his  knees  tremble 
under  the  weight,  so  weak  had  he  grown. 

"Prisoner  of  war!"  The  words  would  not  let 
him  go.  Was  he  not  mad  to  risk  that  captivity 
once  again? 

From  forward  a  singing  came  to  his  ears  and 
loud  hurrahs  and  cries  of  joy.  Germany?  .  .  . 
He  bent  far  over  to  see.  and  his  head  was  as 
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THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

heavy  as  a  stone.  As  with  grappling  irons  the 
words  "prisoner  of  war"  had  hooked  themselves 
into  his  brain — and  seemed  to  weigh  him  down 
even  as  the  song  rose  higher  and  higher. 

It  seemed  to  him  as  though  on  the  approaching 
gangplank  he  could:  see  the  crimson  face  of 
Stuff  contorted  into  a  grin  of  fiendish  delight. 
Triumphantly  the  man  was  awaiting  his  pris- 
oner of  war  and  carrying  clanking  chains  for  his 
limbs  and  mind.  A  few  minutes  more  and  the 
chains  would  be  used.  .  .  .  Whither  could  one 
flee?  .  .  . 

He  had  a  vision  of  himself  caught  in  the  chains 
and  driven  along  by  Stuff  under  the  lashes  of  a 
whip!  And  round  about  stood  people  and 
laughed.  A  short,  hoarse  moan  came  from  him. 
He  wanted  to  open  his  tunic  and  show  his  deep, 
deep  scar.  Then  he  let  his  arms  sink.  It  was 
all  nonsense.  Mathilde  might  even  now  have 
procured  his  definite  release.  .  .  . 

No!  He  must  save  himself!  A  cry  for  help 
stuck  in  his  throat.  But  he  knew  with  a  mad 
certainty  that  he  could  not  land,  that  he  could 
not  return  to  the  captivity  of  war,  to  Stuff  and 
the  chains.  .  .  .  He  must  not,  whatever  the 
cost.  .  .  . 

Music  struck  on  his  ear.  The  foghorn  blew 
its  blast.  And  he  saw  the  prison  open,  saw  it 
arise  from  the  fog  in  its  might!  And  the  fog 
hung  so  deep  that  it  hid  the  hills  of  his  father- 
land from  his  sight  and  also  the  tops  of  the 
trees,  so  that  only  their  trunks  showed  like  the 
serried  bars  of  a  huge  cage.  .  .  . 

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THE  JUDGMENT  OF  PEACE 

In  another  minute  and  he  would  be  behind  the 
bars  and  Stuff  would  lock  the  gate  and  pocket 
the  keys.  .  .  . 

No! 

They  must  not  have  him  again !  A  blessed  re- 
solve poured  through  his  veins.  He  bent  over 
farther  and  farther.  ...  The  thought  of  Ma- 
thilde  flashed  through  his  mind.  .  .  .  But  al- 
ready the  heavy  pack  had  glided  forward  and 
pulled  him  down  and  pressed  him  toward  the 
water  as  with  an  iron  fist.  He  wanted  to  utter 
her  name.  His  hands  struggled  but  found  no 
resting-place.  With  a  great  cry  of  "No !"  he  was 
plunged  into  the  white  foam. 

"Man  overboard!"  the  marine  roared  at  the 
top  of  his  voice. 

No  one  heard  him.  All  were  crowding  for- 
ward, waving  their  caps  and  kerchiefs. 

"Damn  it!  Man  overboard!"  The  marine 
looked  about  for  a  rope  or  a  life-belt.  He  found 
neither  and  raced  up  the  stairs.  On  the  upper 
deck  he  saw,  far  in  the  wake  now,  a  head  bobbing 
out  of  the  water  and  behind  it,  swollen  to  a  great 
size,  a  soldier's  pack. 

"Man  overboard!"  the  marine  roared  toward 
the  bridge.  But  the  captain  could  not  hear  his 
voice  because  it  was  drowned  by  a  song  that 
came  from  many  hundred  voices : 

"In  the  homeland,  in  the  homeland, 
There  we  shall  meet  again." 


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